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RE-PUBHSHED FROM THE 



BOSTON RECORDZiR U TELEORAPH, 



FOR 1825. 



BY VIGORNIUS, AND OTHERS. 



^ ilXXHISRST, SXASS. 

PUBLISHED BY MARK H. NEWMAN. 



CARTER AND ADAMS, PRINTERS. 

iRao. 



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PUBLISHERS' ADVERTJSEMENT. 

Various suggestions have rendered it probable, that the repub- 
lication of the following Essays, would benefit the cause of Af- 
rica. The publishers have thought it inexpedient to swell the size 
of the present pamphlet, by the insertion of all the communications 
on the subject of slavery, which appeared in the Recorder and 
Telegraph of 1825. A sufficient notice of the articles omitted, it 
is believed, will be found in the IXth No. of Hieronymus, and in 
a letter of Vigornius, which the publishers beg leave to subjoin. 



June 6, 1826. 

Gentlemen. 

So far as I am concerned, you have my consent to the publication, 
which you have proposed. The subject of slavery has already assumed a most im - 
portant character, and is daily awakening a new interest in the hearts of thou- 
sands, who feel for the honor and the welfare of our nation, and for the rights and 
claims of the oppressed and degraded. I cannot but hope, therefore, th^t you 
will find yourselves amply remunerated for your labor and expense. 

When the essays of Vigornius were published, I anticipated some severe an- 
imadversions upon the sentiments. I could not expect, that many slave-hold- 
ers would fairly and honorably grapple with the arguments against the princi- 
ple of slavery. And I had reason to think, that the facts, which I adduced, 
stubborn as they are, would probably encounter that peremptoriness of asser- 
tion, which reveals the poverty of the writer's logic, and that clamor and flatter- 
ing of painful consciousness, which always admit of an easy interpretation. 
Truth operates slowly, when it opposes the wishes of personal interest. I 
was not at all surprised, therefore, when I read the strictures of " A Caroli- 
nian," of " Libertatis Amicus," and of " Philo " fof Louisiana). 

To " Hieronymus" the cause of benevolence is under the greatest obligations*. 
In his views of slavery and emancipation, I most cordially acfjuiesce. For his 
candid and friendly treatment of Vigornius, I would take this opportunity to 
express my gratitude. 

It aflx)rds " the author of six numbers" no small satisfaction, to be able to 
appeal from the denunciations of" A Carolinian," to the following testimony of 
" A Slave-Holder" of N. C. published in the Recorder & Telegfaph, Oct. 14, 
jt825. " I have shown those articles on slavery to several of ray friends, who 



are slave-holders ; and I believe we are unanimous in the opinion, that their 
author wras personally acquainted with slavery, as it now exists in the South- 
ern States, that he did not collect his information from books or from travel- 
lers ; but that he had see7i it with the eye of a Christian and a patriot. &c." 
Supported by such testimony, and encouraged by the corrohorations of "Hleron- 
ymus," " Libertas," and others "acquainted with slavery as it now exists" in this 
country, I cannot but cherish confidence in the general correctness of the facts, 
which I adduced. The sentiments, I have seen no reason to change. 

Happy will it be for these United States, when the North and the South shall 
act in regard to slavery, under a full impression of the obligations of patriot- 
ism, humanity, and our holy religion. I thank God for the tokens of a nobler 
and purer state of feeling. The gospel is triumphing over the worldliness of 
man. There is indeed a cloud still hanging over the prospects of the pres- 
ent generation of slaves, — but "hope plays on its edges, and tinges them 
with gold." The day of redemption is coming: — a multitude of the oppressed 
are tuning their harps for the year of jubilee : — for Ethiopia is soon to stretch 
out her hands unto God. 

You are at liberty to use this letter, as you please. 

Your obedient servant, 

VIGORNIUS. 



S£ AVER'S'. No. Z. 



In tracing the origin and progress of slavery in primitive 
times, we find little upon which we can rely with implicit confi- 
dence. For authentic profane history begins just about the time 
the Old Testament was finished ; that is to say, within four or 
five centuries of the Christian era ; and as sacred history is almost 
exclusively confined, in its circumstantial details, to the remark- 
able dealings of Jehovah with his peculiar people, we are neces- 
sarily compelled to resort to poetical allusions and the uncertain 
legends of oral tradition, for nearly all our knowledge of the man- 
ners and customs of the earliest ages of heathen antiquity. It 
seems to be a very probable hypothesis, that captives in tvar were 
retained as slaves, very soon after the confusion of tongues. Pa- 
rents, also, appear to have sold their children into servjtude, at a 
very remote period. Some have supposed, that slavery commenc- 
ed with Nimrod : and hence the lines of Pope — 

Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began, 
A mighty hunter, and his prey was man. 

But whether the simple language of the Bible (Gen. 10. 9.) war- 
rants this commentary, I submit to those, who are more fond than 
I am, of the whimsical conceits and " airy nothings," which have 
too often found a "local habitation and a name" in the chasms 
of sacred history. It is certain, however, from the manner in 
which Joseph's brethren sold him to the Ishmaelites, that men had 
already become an article of traflac. Soon after, we find the Is- 
raelites a nation of slaves in Egypt : and, as is well known, they 
also became slave-holders, after their settlement in Palestine. 
Homer repeatedly alludes to the custom of kidnapping in small 
piratical expeditions, and of reducing prisoners of war to the con- 
dition of slaves. Thucydides mentions, that the ancient Greeks, 
and the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands and upon the Asi- 
atic shore, were addicted to mutual piracies : and their predatory 
enterprises, like the subsequent practice of thieving in Sparta, so 
far from involving any idea of wrong, or of moral turpitude, ap- 
pear to have been universally regarded as achievements of hero- 
ism and glory. An exchange of prisoners of war was unknown 
to the ancients. In Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the collar and 
the chain awaited the captive. 

It may perhaps be a matter of question, how much the promO'^ 
tion of Joseph will prove for the lenity, with which the early 
o 



6 SLAVERY. [no. I. 

Egfyptiaiis may bavc treated their slaves. The condition of the 
Israelites in bondage is well known. And in later times, the bond- 
men of Egypt are said to have been treated with great cruelty. 
Nothing but the temple of Hercules could shelter them from the 
barbarity of their merciless tyrants. — Throughout Greece the pri- 
vations and hardshij)s of the slaves were almost beyond endur- 
ance, — notwithstanding Demosthenes once said, that " the con- 
dition of a slave at Athens was preferable to that of a free citi- 
zen in many other countries." But the freeborn spirit would 
sometimes rise above its debasement, and burst the chains, w hich 
capricious fortune or the strong arm of power had imposed upon 
it. " AthentEus reports, that in Attica the slaves once seized up- 
on the castle of Sunium, and committed ravages upon the coun- 
try; and at the same time made their second insurrection in Sic- 
ily : for in that country they frequently rebelled, but were at last 
reduced with great slaughter, no less than a niilUon of them be- 
ing killed." The Spartans olten sullered severely from their 
oppression of the unfortunate Ilelotes. — In the early ages of Rome, 
vanquished nations were incorporated with tlie original iidiabi- 
tants. This pohcy was afterwards abandoned, and prisoners of 
war were marched to Rome, to constitute an insulated and de- 
spised portion (»f the community : — until, after various changes, 
the slaves under the Emperors gradually acquired nearly equal 
privileges with Roman citizens. Coniparatively speaking, tlie 
Romans in general deserve comnien<Uition for tlieir treatment of 
their slaves, notwithstandingtheir sanguinary and barbarous laws 
defining the prerogative of a master or a paicrfaniitias. The 
hope of manumission Avas never denied to Roman slaves : they 
were frequently rewarded with promotions and enfranchisement : 
they were employed in trades, and educated in tlie liberal arts — 
for slaves were the instructers of the Roman youth : and such 
monuments as the comedies of Terence and the morals of Epic- 
Ictus, render it certain, that genius beamed forth from the degra- 
dation of physical servitude, to enligliten and adorn some of the 
proudest ages of classical literature. 

The precise period, when European nations began to depart 
from the custom of enslaving their captives, cannot, I beheve, be 
ascertained with certainty : neither are we able to develope the 
particular operations of the causes, which elfected its ultimate abo- 
lition. All that can he said with conlidence, is, that after the north- 
ern and eastern barbarians had settled down upon the ruins of 
the mighty fabric ol' the Roman empire, — when Christianity with 
its benevolent and humanizing principles had become the professed 
religion of J'^urope, — and when a brilliant and amiable knight- 
hood had laboured to redeem the character of the feudal system, 
or alleviate its unavoidable evils, — then the laws of war were 
gradually meliorated, and long before the revival of learning, the 
abominable practice of dooming the vanquished to ignominiouK 
slavery, was comjiletely abolished. 



NO. T.] SLAVERY. 7 

The Portuguese* revived the detestable traffic in human flesh, 
by landing upon the coast of Africa, and stealing the innocent na- 
tives. When it became difficult to meet the demand for slaves, 
they were guilty of the most execrable expedients to induce the 
peaceful tribes to make war upon each other, and sell the cap- 
tives. I believe it was not until the sixteenth century, that slaves 
were transported to the American continent. In 1517, Charles 
Vth granted permission to import 4000 Africans into America. But 
he afterwards repented of his conduct, and in 1542 gave orders for 
the manumission of all slaves in his Ameuican Islands. "The 
Dominicans in Spanish America, witnessing the cruel treatment, 
which the slaves underwent there, considered slavery as utterly 
repugnant to the principles of the gospel, and recommended the 
abolition of it." Hence a dispute between them and the Fran- 
ciscans, which was settled by Pope Leo Xth, — " That not only 
the Christian religion, but nature herself cried out against slave- 
ry." The English commenced the slave-trade in 1562, in the 
reign of Elizabeth — who from the first rpiestioned its lawfulness, 
and declared, that if the Africans were carried oft' without their 
free consent, " it would be detestable and call down the vengeance 
of heaven upon the undertakers :" — and enjoined upon all mas- 
ters of English slave vessels, not to take any against their inclina- 
tion. But her injunctions were not obeyed, — as it is needless to 
remark. In France Louis Xlllth was about to emancipate all 
slaves in liis dominion, when he Avas prevented by the humane 
assurance, that the introduction of slaves into his colonies was 
the readiest Avay of converting them to Chi'istianity. 

Thus it appears, that slavery, when it commenced in the West- 
Indies and South-America, was openly discountenanced by the 
sovereigns of Spain, France, and England, and in Italy by the Pope 
— the spiritual potentate of all Catholic countries. The slave- 
trade, nevertheless, was carried on, by the conceaiment and ar- 
tifice of their avaricious and inhuman subjects. 

In the year 1620 — the very year in wliich the venerated fathers 
of New-England's civil and religious freedom landed at Plymouth, 
— an ill-fated Dutch ship froi , Africa, sold twenty slaves to the 
colony at Jamestown, Va.; and here, if I mistake not, began the 

* I do not intend to imply, that sliivory was unknown in Africa, initil this 
period. In what lias thus far been said of tiie prugrcsj; cl" sluv.ny, 1 have 
chiefly confined myself to those nations, concerning whose history we have au- 
thentic documents. It may be remarked in general, however, that througliout 
Asia, China excepted, involuntary servitude in dilTerent degrees of .severity, ap- 
pears to have existed from time immemorial. i:?o also in ditrcrent part.s of Af- 
rica. And this, I apprehend, is all or nearh' all that can be said with unhesi- 
tating confidence. Tliis point may again he noticed. Certainly the Portu- 
guese were the first among the />fo;?/c of Europe, who commeni-ed an inter- 
course willi tiic natives of Africa, for the purpose of obtaining slaves, — thus lay- 
ing the foimdation of the whole system of that iidiuman and unrighteous op- 
pression, whicli so shockingly disfigures the aspect ofmodi^rn Christendom- 



8 SLAVERt. [no. lU 

elave-holdlng system among the Engluih colonists. During this 
century and the first half of the eighteenth, England laboured 
hard to monopohze the slave trade ; but the other powers of Eu- 
rope were successful competitors in this odious commerce of the 
human species, which, originating in an insatiable thirst for gold, 
and prosecuted with the most hardened and unrelenting cruelty, 
has afflicted more than half of the globe with its crimes and calam- 
ities. Would to heaven, that the knell of slavery had been tolled, 
when the civilized nations of Europe, near the very midnight of 
the dark ages, ceased to enslave prisoners of war ! 1 know not 
how many leel as 1 do ; but for myself, " my thoughts do often lie 
too deep for tears," while remembering, that,when Europe had ris- 
en from the tomb — when the darkness, which so long trammeled 
or buried the genius of her sons, had rolled back before a bright 
and glorious morning of intellectual day — then, in stern defiance 
of every principle of nature and humanity, and every precept of 
that religion, which smiles upon us, with the sceptre of mercy in 
one hand, and the olive-branch in the other, chains and fetters 
were again forged, and the most diabolical passions of our fallen 
nature. Mere let loose in a remorseless warfare upon the natural 
and unalienable rights of brethren — created by the same benevo- 
lent God, who has made of one blood all the nations of men to 
dwell upon all the face of the earth — bearing the same image — 
and born with the birth right of the same immortality. Had I 
the " spirit-stirring" genius of Sterne, 1 would never have re- 
course to the cold formality of argument, in a humble plea for 
the outraged and disconsolate African : but I would tell a tale of 
real sorrow, and fearlessly venture the issue upon an unvarnished 
panorama of cruelty and wretchedness, in comparison with which, 
'■'poor Yorick's'" most alTecting picture of misery in an aged pris- 
oner of the Bastile, would be a delightful portraiture of Elysian 
happiness. Vigobnius. 

SZiAV^RT. No. XZ. 

It is needless to observe, that no efforts have yet been able to 
effect a suppression of the African slave-trade. So long as a de- 
mand for slaves exists, this odious commerce in human flesh will 
continue, in defiance of law, danger, and death. After all that 
has been done, the root of the evil has hardly been touched.— 
America has a most important work to do, and it is high time it 
was begun. In this boasted land of liberty and equal rights, there 
is a nation of slaves. And I now say, we have no right to hold 
them in bondage. 

I would premise, that when I speak of right, I mean absolute 
right, and I understand those " actions to bo absolutely right, 



NO. II.] SLAVERY. & 

which, under all the circumstances of the case, a perfectly well 
informed moral agent is morally obliged to perform." And fur- 
ther, — I make no distinction, in point of absolute right, between 
the holding of slaves (whether bought or inherited,) the purchase 
of slaves, selling of slaves, and the stealing of slaveg, or in a 
word, downright kidnapping: for the very simple reason, that no 
man has a right to retain what he himself or another had no 
right to purchase,-and no man has a right to purchase what anoth- 
er had no right to sell — and no man has a right to sell what he 
had no right to procure by his own or another's agency. Hence, all 
the arguments ever urged in favor of the extermination of the slave 
trade, apply with equal force, to say the least, to the manumission 
of slaves. These arguments, as is well known, are mainly built 
upon the great law of Christian benevolence " do to others as yon 
would be done by," and as a philosophical structure, upon the first 
law of our nature, " that no just man shall be given into slavery, 
against his own consent," and upon the first law of justice, " that 
no person shall do harm to another without a previous provoca- 
tion." These are self-evident principles, and all slavery in the 
common signification of the term, is in open violation of them. 

In vindication of slavery, it may be argued, that the practice 
has existed from the earliest ages, and among almost all nations^ 
On the same ground you may defend every species of crime in 
the catalogue of human wickedness. 

The Scriptures are alleged to sanction slavery. If it was right 
for the Jews to hold slaves, it is right for all. Let us examine 
the force of this argument. 

As to slaves of Hebrew origin, we have the following statute in 
Deut. 24.7. — "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the 
children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, 
then that thief shall die; and thou shaltput away evil from amongst 
you." The Jews were required to treat bondmen of their own nation 
as hired servants. At the return of the Sabbatical year, all Hebrew 
slaves were entitled to their freedom, and were at liberty to go 
out from their master, with their wives and children. Six years, 
therefore, was the longest period of slavery, which could be exacted 
of a Hebrew. The Jews became slaves of their brethren, in con- 
sequence of being sold by poor parents — of a voluntary sale of 
themselves — of an inability to pay their debts — or to restore prop- 
erty, which they might have stolen. When their term of service 
had expired, their masters were required to make a liberal pro- 
vision for their wants. A Hebrew could not be sold to the heatlien; 
and his condition as a bondman Avas similar to that of a modern 
apprentice, who is bound for a term of years, or that of German 
and Irish Redemptioners — poor emigrants, who are sold to labour, 
in order to defray the expenses of transportation to this country. 
— Is there any thing here to warrant modern slavery ? 

The Jews, however, had some heathen slaves. I cannot find, 



10 * .SLAVKUY. [no. a. 

that they had any ixiimssion to steal slaves among the neighl)oiir- 
ing- nations. " He that stealcth a man (that is, as some interpret, 
a Hebrew or a Gentile) and selleth him, or if he be found in his 
liaud, he shall surely be put to death." Ex.21. 16. If there is 
any doubt of our correctness of the extensive application of this 
article of the law, there certainly can be none in regard to the 
meanirig of this most important injunction, — " Both thy bond- 
men and thy bond-maids, which thou slialt have, shall be of the 
heathen that are round about yon ; of them shall ye buy bond- 
men and bond-maids." Lev. 2-5. 44. The context will shew, that 
the terms " bond-men" and "bond-maids," are used with a pecu- 
liar force, denoting the difference between Hebrew and hcatiien 
slaves. These last were to be instructed in the Jewish religion; 
and as soon as they renounced idolatry, and embraced Judaism, 
they were entitled to all the privileges of Hebrew citizens. 

The Israelites seem never to have availed themselves, to any 
great extent, of the privilege of purchasing servants, or slaves, of 
the Gentile nations. And it may be inferred from the compara- 
tively few notices concerning the treatment of heathen slaves, and 
from the steadfast purpose of the sacred lawgiver to ])revent the 
introduction of idolatry, that a large number -was never anticipat- 
ed; and, if it had been otherwise, that this species of servitude 
would not have been allowed. When Joshua went into tiie land 
of Canaan, he was required to put to death all the inhabitants: 
but the Gibeonites, «fcc. having surreptitiously obtained a treaty 
with him, were condemned to act as servants about the taberna- 
cle. But it will be urged, the Jews actually /<orf heathen slaves 
— why have we not the same right ? 

Does it follow, as a matter of course, that we have a right to 
slaves, because the Jews possessed them ? 31oses allowed cer- 
tain domestic customs, which the gospel has abolished. Said our 
Saviour, " Closes from the humiuss of your hearts suffered you to 
put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not .s«." Is 
it so under the gospel ? Would ancient Jewish example sanction 
modern polygamy ? 

The Jews were a privileged people : and the same God, who 
in his holy providence directed them to exterminate the heathen 
from the land of promise, also expressly gave \\wn\ permission to 
buy skives of the nations around them and in their midst. They 
would have had no right to drive out the Canaanites and massacre 
immense multitudes, had not God commanded them to do it ; and 
they would have had no right to hold a foreigner in bondage, had 
not God permitted them. Now when a peo|)le can j)rove, that God 
\\ns permitted tlinn to enslave their fellows beings, — then, and not 
till then, can they be authorized to follow Jewish ]>recedent in re- 
gard to slavery. When the Israelites departed irom Egypt, they 
borrowed, by divine direction, jewels of silver and gold, and rai- 
ment, — which the Egyjjtians expected to receive again, but which 



NO.II.] SLAVERY. 11 

the borrowers never did, and never intended to return. AVliy not 
appeal to tiiis fact, in support of fraud and thieving ? And why 
not, on the autliority of Jewish example, invade the territories of 
nations, who never injured us, and spare neither man, woman, nor 
chikl ? 

That the Jews had a riglit to buy slaves of the heathen, I admit, 
as readily as I admit their right to the promised land. But the 
lieathen had no more right to sell their children or one another to 
the Jews, than a Jew had to sell his children or fellow citizens to 
them — which he was most solemnly forbidden to do. I believe no 
one would maintain, that, in a state of natuie, a man has a right to 
enslave his fellows. Why do not organized communities, in relation 
to themselves and one another, stand upon the same ground in re- 
spect to slavery, as individuals in a state of natural liberty ? 11" the 
Gentile nations contemporary with the Jews,hada right to steal and 
sell one another to a foreign people, then the Savage, the Algerine, 
the Hottentot, the European, and the Asiatic, have now tlie same 
right to enslave us, and we to enslave them. Whose creed contains 
an article like this ? — Am I asked, why, if the heathen had no right 
to sell slaves to the Hebrews, did not God forbid them ? — I an- 
swer, why did not God give them a revelation I V/hy did he leave 
Pharaoh and his people to the desolations of the ten plagues ? 
Why did he dispose the Egyptians to lend the Israelites their 
most precious articles of apparel and ornament ? Or why com- 
mission Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, without giving tlieni 
Avarning? — But will any man of common sense pretend, that all, 
which the heathen do, is right, because God has not sent them 
a prohibition ? Or will any man pretend, that the conduct of the 
Jews, in several specified particulars, would have been right, un- 
less God had given them his permission or commandment ? 

But, says the slave-stealer or slave holder, to say the least, we 
have a virtual permission to enslave the Africans, — because as de- 
scendants of Ham they are doomed to servitude by the curse of 
Noah. On this point there have been sad mistakes. I will not stop 
to question the prophetic character of this curse, which Avas utter- 
ed under circumstances familiar to every reader of the Bible; but, 
so far as this is concerned, I concede all that tlie objector de- 
mands. This curse was denounced against Ham through the 
line of Canaan : we have no knowledge of the particularinode 
or extent of its operation : there is not a tittle of evidence, that 
any of the posterity of Canaan lived in Africa ; — on the contrary, 
we have the declaration of the Scriptures, corroborated by the 
testimony of profane writers, that Africa was peopled by the other 
sons of Ham ; and that the descendants of Canaan inhabited wes- 
tern Asia, and were chiefly destroyed, or expelled from the land, 
which God gave to his chosen people. The argument of the ob- 
jector, then, without any further analysis, must seem to any man 
of tolerable sense to be about as destitute of soliditv, as the vision 
of a dream. 



IS SLAVERY. [no. U. 

I go farther. Admitting the curse of Noah to be unquestiona- 
bly prophetic — admitting that the Africans were the undoubted 
descendants of Ham through the Une of Canaan — admitting that it 
was the unerring declaration of God, that we were the people whom 
they would serve — I deny the right to enslave them. And I put it 
to the conscience of every man of reason, whether it would fur- 
nish the least justification of slavery 1 Can the traitor Judas — 
can the infuriated populace of Jerusalem, who crucified their Lord 
and Redeemer, — plead at the bar of eternal justice, that their deeds 
of diabolical wickedness were foretold in the language of proph- 
ecy 1 

Before we can defend slavery, from any facts in the economy 
of the Hebrew commonwealth, we must prove, that God has spe- 
cifically given us the same unequivocal privileges ; and as this can- 
not be done, it is a shocking libel on tiie Scriptures, to claim them 
as a vindication of debased and miserable servitude. Is not the 
pure spirit of the Mosaic institutions repugnant to slavery ? All 
the statutes, regulating the treatment of slaves, plainly intimate 
that slavery is an evil and bitter thing. Had the Jewish religion, 
instead of being exclusive in its character, been universal in its 
application, or had all nations embraced it, there would have been 
no Gentiles to steal and sell slaves. It is the spirit, not the letter 
merely, which demands attention. Too often the letter has "kill- 
ed." But the Jewish economy has no longer the divine sanction. 
Its exclusiveness exists only in the unprecedented obstinacy of 
the poor wanderers of Israel. Jew and Gentile, bond and free, 
are all one in Christ. The gospel encircles the whole human fam- 
ily, and to deprive a fellow immortal of his liberty, and to detain 
him in involuntary servitude, no matter what his color or his 
clime, — is neither loving our neighbor as ourselves, nor doing an 
we would be done by. And is it possible, that, in this enlightened 
age, there are those professing to be disciples of Jesus, who are 
ready to vindicate the right of slavery, even upon the principles 
of that heavenly system, which originated in love as pure and in- 
finite as the holiness of God ! Vigornius. 



so. III.] SLAVERY. 13 



SLAVEnir. No. III. 

Though God has made of one blood all the nations of men, to 
dwell on all the face of the earth, the color of the Africans has 
been interpreted to denote intended subjection. I do not think it 
worth while to engage in a pilosophical speculation respecting the 
origin of those different complexions, which now characterize our 
race, though all descended from the same parents, and parents 
too whose color, we have some good reason to believe, was neither 
white nor black, but a medium between both. As a striking con- 
firmation of the hypothesis, that climate and mode of life have pro- 
duced the varieties of color in the human species, we have a liv- 
ing argument in the case of the modern Jews. While it is an in- 
disputable fact, that the Jews have remained a distinct people, at 
the present day, the English Jew is whue, the Armenian olive, the 
Arabian copper, the Portuguese swarthy. — But let color be as it 
may, I would gladly learn where it is to be ascertained in the 
book of nature or of God, that color is the standard of relative rank 
in the scale of humanity, — and how this scale is graduated. I • 
know not that the great Author of nature has any w here informed 
us, that the whites, ex colore, have a right to tyrannize over any of 
the human race — to make the Africans their hewers of wood, and 
drawers of water, and beasts of burden. Why have we any more 
claim upon the African, than we have upon the Indian, because he 
is red, or upon the Asiatic, because he has a light or a dark olive 
complexion? Why is Qolor in one a charter of superiority, and in 
another an indenture of servitude ? Why has the American a bet- 
ter title to a slave from Africa, than the African to a slave from 
Circassia, or any of what we call the fair regions of the earth? 
When the English Jew has a right on the ground of complexion 
to enslave his darker brethren, then, and not till then, will a citi- 
zen of these United States have a right on the same ground to en- 
slave his brethren of Africa. 

But it has been said, the Africans are inferior in their nature, and 
therefore we are authorized to hold them as property. In this 
argument, as in that just examined, there is an assumption, both 
in the premises and conclusion. I care not what Buffon and the 
naturalists say about the physical organization of the negroes ; I 
care not if they are descended from the ouran-outang, as the learn- 
ed Monboddo says we all did ; I contend that a fair experiment 
has never been made. Place a European or any other man in like 
circumstances, and we have no very strong reason to believe, that 
his intellect would flash any more light upon the world, than that 
of the enslaved African. Though it is true, as the amiable Cow- 
per says, " minds are never to be sold," yet the deteriorating, de- 
basinn-' influence of physical oppression is so palpably ob>douSr 
3 



14 ' SLAVERY. [no. m. 

that old Homer, that nice observer of men and things, had good 
reason for the idea, " that Jove took away half the senses of the 
man, whom he doomed to be a slave." I have no expectation 
that wondrous miracles are ever to be wrought in science and 
literature, by African genius. I shall not stop to examine the 
authority of the " legends, that the ancient bards of Dahomy re- 
hearsed poems," which, like the mysteries and moralities of the 
early French drama, " took up whole days in the recital," or that 
" when Orpheus was charming the forests into life, and Hesiod 
was tracing the genealogies of the gods, and weaving time and 
nature into song, and Homer was singing the wars of the Greeks 
and the wanderings of Ulysses, then the bards of Nigritia were 
celebrating the exploits of their heroes, and publishing the re- 
cords of their renown in the ears of listening kings and admiring- 
nations ;" — but I am confident, that every thing attempted for the 
intellectual improvement of people of color, has been attended 
with great success : and whoever has read such narratives as 
those of the unfortunate Park, or of the missionary Campbell in 
South Africa — whoever has become acquainted with the true na- 
tive character of the African, cannot have a reasonable doubt, 
that he is not very far, certainly not at a returnless distance, from 
the European or the American, in what Shakspeare calls the 
"milk of human kindness ;" and though he has never enjoyed 
the golden opportunity of exhibiting the pompous affectation of 
refinement, and the hollow-hearted urbanity of the more elegant 
white man, that he nevertheless possesses some share of those 
affectionate sympathies and those kindlier feelings of the heart, 
which are the life-blood of domestic endearment, and the founda- 
tion of all that is happy in social intercourse. 

But suppose the African inferior to the white man, — what 
then 1 Are we warranted to enslave a man, on the ground of 
his intellectual inferiority ? To say nothing of the impropriety 
of the inference, it would establish a principle, which, as a practi- 
cal one, would not be altogether congenial to beings such as we 
are, who bow so reverently at the shrine of self, and display so 
much of the Ishmaelite, on the sul)iect of intellectual character. 
For I see no reason, why the man of genius could not enslave 
thousands, whom nature and the circumstances of external con- 
dition have placed below him in mental ability ; in other words, 
why the man of talents, and perchance your mere fopling of sci- 
ence and literature, would not have a right to go about the com- 
munity willi his branding iron, and put his stamp of ownership 
upon all his real or sui)]>ose(l inferiors. It would be a little bet- 
ter for the argiunent, if it did not prove quite so nmch. 

At a remote period of Grecian antiquity, the prowling pirate 
would often seize the harmless shepherd while tending his flocks 
and listening to the melody of his lyre, or the laborious husband- 
man at work in his field, and drag him into slavery. And often 



NO. III.] bLAVEEV. 15 

in the early times of New England's history, the yell of the infu- 
riated savage wantonly broke tlie silence of midnight, and death 
or a dreadful captivity was the lot of the miserable victims. Was 
this right ? — Again, the corsair of Barbary has frequently cap- 
tured the Chistian mariner on the high road of nations, and sent 
him to a dungeon of chains, famine, and death. And now for 
nearly three centuries, the slave-stealer with the passions of a 
fiend has been pursuing his infernal schemes, and the poor na- 
tives of Africa have been instigated to a most barbarous warfare 
upon each other — and for wliat ? To furnish cargoes of human 
beings — of immortal souls — for the slave ship — that " den of 
abominations"~that charnel-house — that ghastly sepulchre, where 
ten thousand times life and death have been literally chained to- 
gether, exhibiting the horrid spectacle of mortahty in dissolving 
ruins, and a living spirit entombed in a loathsome, soul-sickenmg 
mass of human putrefaction. — Again I ask. Where is the right ? 
I call upon the advocates of slavery to adduce a solitary argu- 
ment connected with natural right and equity, to justify an Amer- 
ican slave-stealer, and shall I say it, an American slave-holder, 
that will not equally justify the conduct of the ancient pirate, the 
modern corsair, or the savages of our forests — more especially 
the latter, cheated, robbed of their lands, and hunted down, as 
they often have been, by the humane citizens of these United States. 
I appeal to the good sense, the understanding, and the conscience 
of every reader. — Is there a man or a power on earth, that has a 
right to enslave you ? And if there is not, where in the light of 
heaven or of nature, can you read the title to traffic in human 
bones and sinews, to hold a nation of slaves — to 

•" Chain them and task them, and exact their sweat 
" With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart 
" Weeps when slie sees inflicted on a beast ? 

And what man seeing this, * 

" And having Imman feelings, does not blush, 
" And hang his head, to think himself a man?" 

Tell me not, that whatever may be the guilt of stealing a man, 
the son has a right to retain an inheritance of slaves. To the 
shame of our country, he has a legal right, I know ; but in the 
sight of that God, who sceth not as man seeth, he has no right to 
retain what his father or relative had no right to buy, and what 
the seller had no right to obtain by his own or another's unright- 
eous instrumentality. What is the right that can guaranty the 
possession or inheritance of stolen property ? Or condemn a 
man to imprisonment for life — afterwards establish his innocence 
most conclusively — would you still continue him in his chains ? 
Could a sovereign justly detain those in prison, who had been un- 
justly confined by his predecessor ?~But 1 am ready to say, that 
J:he slave holder, bating particular aggravations of cruelty, is to all 
intents and purposes, a man stealer. Every descendant of Adam, 



i$ SLAVEkf, [no. IV, 

jlo matter whether his parents are in servitude or not, is horn free 
and independent. Nature never forged a collar or a chain. In 
Africa, the slave is stolen from his home, from liberties actually 
enjoyed ; in America, the infant of the slave, and often of the mas- 
ter, the moment it opens its eyes, beholds the insignia of a bond- 
age to last till the vital spark brightens in the regions of immor- 
tality. I repeat it, every child, born of a slave andrelained in ser- 
vitude, is stolen from his freedom, is denied the birth-right tchch 
God and nature gave him, Viuounius. 

SKAVZSRIT. No. XV. 

Slavery is not only indefensible upon the general principles of 
right, but it is in flagrant opposition to the genius of our govern- 
ment. A legitimate application of the letter and spirit of our freei 
institutions would emancipate every slave within our territories ; 
and the young republic of Columbia, with a constitution similar to 
our own, has acted consistently in declaring every inhabitant to 
be entitled to the same rights and privileges. "We hold these 
truths to be self-evident," says our boasted Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, " that all men are created equal ; that their Creator has 
endowed them with certain unalienable rights ; thai among these 
rights, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ;" — (what fur- 
ther ?) "and in support of these principles, we pledge our lives, our 
fortunes, and our sacred honor." So then life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness, are the unalienable rights of all inankind ! ! And 
either the slave was forgotten — or he was not recognised as a hu- 
man being — or he is an exception to the universal rule — or lastly, 
Jjis right to " liberty and the pursuit of happiness " is abrogated, 
or superceded by the paramount right of his master to hold him 
in servitude, and to work, scourge, or sell him, like a brute. But 
perhaps the document under remark, was only intended to apply 
to mankind in general, and to white jieople, or emphatically the 
citizens of the New World, in particular. " Wisdom for parts," 
in the view of the slave-holder who composed it, would have been 
what Young said it was in another case : — 

'• Wisdom for ptirts is madness for the whole." 
" This slanipd the parodox." 

Americans signing a Declaration of Independence one day, 
and brandishing a Slave-Whip the next ! Indeed, " Our glory 
covers us with noble shame." 

Ever since Congress prohibited the slave-trade, slaves have an- 
nually been smuggled into the Southern States, and in some in- 
stances by the connivance of United States Oflicers, Within a few 
years, also, it was voted in general Congress assembled, that Mis*- 



NO. IV. j SLAVERY. 17 

souri be a slave holding state : " and thus," said a writer, who 
seems to have felt for the disgrace of his country, "by the bless- 
ing of God, siave-holding is established there by statute, — by 
the laws of our free and independent legislature." And what is 
the general sentiment ot the nation, on the great question of slav- 
ery I — While our citizens from Maine to the Floridas thrill at the 
sound of Grecian emancipation, and while thousands would follow 
the star-spangled banner in a crusade against the Ottoman cres- 
cent ; while our newspapers, for nearly a year, have been ring- 
ing with " Lafayette" and his exhibitions ; and while the patriot- 
ic enthusiasm ofmuhitudes, rejoices in contributing for the estab- 
lishment of triumphal monuments in commemoi*ation of the events 
and heroes of our revolutionary struggle ; — the clanking of chains 
and the groans of oppression rise up in our condemnation from 
nearly two thirds of our inhabited territories. And though wa 
could plunge ourselves into war with Great Britian for the " Im- 
pressment" of a few seamen, though the very current of life re- 
coils to its fountain, whenever we contemplate the sufferings, which 
were experienced by some of our citizens at Tripoli and Algiers, 
or among the Indians, — yet as a people, after all that has been 
done to arouse the Christian, the patriot, and the man, we can 
hear or see all the immense aggregation of wretchedness endured 
by nearly two millions of slaves, without a sigh of sympathy or a 
tear of commiseration. Admirable commentary on the text- book 
of American Liberty ! Happy America ! — land of freedom and 
equal rights ! 

" Land of every land the pride, 
" Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside ! !" 

Again : slavery is a great political evil — and as true patriots, 
we are bound to exterminate it. 

A republican government cannot rest securely upon the basis 
of mere physical strength. Intelligence and virtue are its true 
palladium. Let our citizens become generally ignorant and im« 
moral, and the death-warrant of our inestimable privileges is sign- 
ed. Besides, there is at the present day an unparalleled spirit 
of revolution abroad in the earth. The lethargy of ages is broken. 
Knowledge is runingto and fro, scattering light where the " dark- 
ness" has been too dark to be " visible." At the South a splen- 
did constellation has appeared in the political firmament. The 
thrones of continental Europe are tottering and crumbling. The 
inspiration of freedom is circulating wide and deep— and as well 
might you strive to stop the Missouri or the Amazon, as to prevent 
its triumphant progress. Why is it that v, e do not apply these princi- 
ples and facts to the condition of our own land ? — Nearly one 
fifth part of our whole population consists of a people, insulated, 
denied the natural rights of men, ignorant, degraded, destitute for 
the most part of moral principle, cast out and trodden under foot. 



IS SLAVEKV. [no. l\. 

— Still they are men, and can feel and act like men. Oppression 
and the debasing influence of servitude have kept them down, but 
there are spirits among them impatient " to break and revenge 
their fetters," — ready to kindle the tlames of insurrection, and 
imbrue their sAvords in the blood of their oppressors. 1 am aware, 
that a general rising of the slaves would probably, but not certain- 
ly, lead to their hopeless extermination, or expose the survivors to 
a deadlier weight of bondage. But where is the man, who can 
coolly contemplate the possible massacre of a part of his fellow-cit- 
izens, because he has no apprehensions for the safety of the rest ? 
Conscious that your home or that of your friend was threatened 
by a desperate incendiary, could you sleep quietly, because the 
alarm-bell would bring a multitude to extinguish the flames ? 
Though armed with the instruments of death, would you pillow 
your head upon a sleeping lion 1 Almost every year, and in spite 
of the most sanguinary laws and eagle-eyed viligance, plots have 
been detected, which, had they ripened into execution, would have 
carried the exasperated vindicators of the rights, which God and 
nature gave, and slave-holders denied, through the first act, at 
least, of the bloody tragedy of St. Domingo. 

In time of war, a large part of the eflective force at the South, 
must be in requisition to keep the slaves in awe ; and tiius slavery 
weakens the national strength. An enemy without is the veriest 
friend, compared to an enemy within. In the event of of an in- 
vasion, arm the slaves, — the cause is ruined. 

But whatever we may now do in suppressing the insurrections 
of slaves, the prospect, if the present system continues, is full of 
horror. Fifty years more, and their number will be not far from 
10,000,000. How can we then as patriots, as philanthropists, dis- 
charge our duty to our country, to generations unborn, without 
a vigorous and determined elVort to stop the career of this threat- 
ening curse of slavery ? What would have been the fate of Egypt, 
had embodied Israel remained in bondage ? How much of Spar- 
tan blood was shed by her slaves ? And Rome too — was not Rome 
brought to the very verge of ruin, wlieii Herdonius, with his band 
of outlaws and insurgent slaves, seized the capitol, and issued his 
proclamation to the inhabitants below, warning them, that he had 
resolved to remove the fetters of the slave, and restore the injur- 
ed exile to his country, — that he preferred to have the Romans 
themselves voluntarily secure this object, but if they would not, 
he would appeal to the yEqui ct Volsci, " ct omnia cxtrema tcnta- 
turvm ac concitaiurum.'" In later tihies, what but a constant aug- 
mentation of privilege saved the Empire from destruction at the 
hands of its slaves ?— Where originated the Turks, the formida- 
ble power to which the Greeks have been so lonu" in subjection 1 
In tlie mountains of Imaus, from ihe meanest of the slaves of the 
Great Khan of Geougcn. " liut," says the elegant historian of 
Rome's Decline and Fall, " their servitude could only last, till a 



>JO. v.] SLAVERY. 19 

leader bold and eloquent, should arise to persuade liis countrymen, 
that the same arms, which they forged for their masters, might 
become in their own hands the instruments of freedom and victo- 
ry. They sallied from the mountain — a sceptre was the reward 
of his advice." In our own age, an Island already alluded to, 
stands as a beacon to the slave holding nations of the danger of 
trampling too long upon the rights of humanity. Call to mind, 
then, the history of the past, think of the present, ascend the hdl 
of contemplation, and thence look around upon the fortunes of our 
beloved country — and see if there is not a cloud of most alarming 
aspect, already above our political horizon. That cloud may now 
seem no bigger than a man's hand ; but in an hour that we think 
not, that little cloud may be an overwhelming blackness ; and the 
destroying angel may come forth on the whirlwind's wing, to pour 
out the replenished vials of the wrath of Him, who" stills the ra- 
ven's clamorous nest," and whose retributive vengeance will not 
always sleep. Reader, what can you do to avert this awful catas- 
trophe ? Are you a man ? Feel and act for humanity. Are you 
a patriot 1 Feel and act for your country. Are you a Christian ? 
Feel and act for the honour of your religion, and the eternal wel- 
fare of fellow immortals. Vigokkids. 



There are moral evils incorporated with the slave-holding sys- 
tem, which are so flagrant and deplorable, that any amount of 
plainness and severity in a representation of them, can be entirely 
vindicated, so long as the statements are clothed in the honest lan- 
guage of truth. Some of these evils have neither been fully un- 
derstood, nor properly contemplated. For had it been otherwise, 
it seems impossible, that the Christianity of the nation should have 
been so indifferent to the moral pollutions of slavery. It is no char- 
ity to cover them with the mantle of silence. They are not con- 
cealed from the eye of Infinite Purity : they ought to be known to 
the virtuous and benevolent on earth, that, if possible, a thorough 
lustration may be immediately commenced. 

In regard to the effects of slavery on the white population, I 
would first merely advert to the legitimate tendency of slave-la- 
bor to strike at the root of those regular and near gradations of 
society, which in New-England are so invaluable, as incentives to 
the industrious and entei prising. It distributes the white commu- 
nity into two great classes — widely separated from each other — 
the variously rich and the degraded poor. And excepting the 
mixed and fluctuating population of large towns and cities, the 
actual condition of the inhabitants of the slave-holding states," is a 
perfect demonstration of the tendency above mentioned. The 



20 SLAVERY. [no. V. 

pernicious consequences of such an inequality of rank and cir- 
cumstance, in a moral point of view, are too obvious to require 
particular illustration. 

Arroo-ance, superciliousness, and various kinds of dissipation, 
are almost inseparably associated with the slave holding system. 
Where the strength of pure moral principle is not felt, there 
seems to be, I had almost said, an insurmountable temptation, in 
the common circumstances of affluent planters, to have recourse 
to criminal indulgencies of appetite and passion, to fill up the 
vacuities, and relieve the impatience of their indolent lives. Their 
ease must be luxurious, to alleviate the wretchedness of inanity. 
But, omitting some particular vices of inferior blackness, I must 
be allowed to animadvert, without any cautious concealment, up- 
on one abomination, which is too abominable for earth. I al- 
lude to that monstrous system of concubinage — that more than 
brutal intercourse, wliich is undeniably tolerated in numerous fam- 
ilies of slave-holders. I am fully aware of the extreme delicacy, 
which an allusion to this fact imperiously demands of the writer, 
who ventures to stigmatize such a consummation of shamelessness. 
But to be remedied, a disease must be known. And while it is an 
unquestionable truth, that the virtue of female slaves is at the 
mercy of merciless concupiscence, — and while it is equally un- 
qustionable, that the lust of masters and masters' sons, is gratified 
to a most shocking enormity ; — it is high time, that the moral 
sense of the nation should cease to be wantonly profaned, and the 
moral character of the nation to be unpardonably outraged, by 
the existence and toleration of ungodliness so intolerable — so ex- 
ecrable. Such a practice, such a crime, is death to the pureness 
of moral sensibility, and the delicacy of moral discrimination. 
But it is idle to go into detail. Our language would be reduced 
to beggary, before we should have presented an adequate picture 
of this'pcstilence, tliat walketh in darkness — this destruction, that 
wastelh at noon-day. 

In reference to the moral condition of the slaves, it is ol)vious, 
that the flagitious vice noticed in the i)reccding paragraph, must 
have a ruinous influence upon those, who are the instruments of 
such gratifications. There can be no doubt, that even the pro- 
fession of piety, on the part of female slaves, throws no obstacle 
in tlie way of the libidinous propensities of ungodly slave holders. 
If these things are so — most assuredly the Christians of New 
England and the South, c<mld never answer at the bar of Ho- 
liness, for an indifterence to this curse of slavery, even if there 
was not another argument against it, within the boundaries of right, 
reason, or revelation. 

But what are the direct advantages, which the slaves enjoy, in 
respect to intellectual or moral improvement 7 Here again it is 
obvious, tJKit whatever religious instruction may be communicated 
to them, the hcalthfulness of moral virtue and sensibility, and if 



VO.V.] SJLAVERy. ' JJi 

I may be allowed the expression, the vitality of conscience, must be 
awiully impaired or ruined, by that polluted and pollutini^ practice, 
which will be execrated by every virtuous mind. But if the master 
is insensible to the motives of moral obli<^ation, — if he views the 
slave as a mere creature of time, with no claim upon immortality,— 
or if he fears that the possession of knowledge will rouse the oppress- 
ed to an effort of physical melioration, — we should not be authoriz- 
ed to expect, that he would labor to elevate the moral or intellectu- 
al character of the slaves under his authority. jMost of the slave- 
holding states have prohibitory laws on this subject. 1 am happy 
to say, however, that those l^ws have not been rigorously enforc- 
ed, — and many planters are said to be willing to have transient 
ministers, of particular character, preach to dieir slaves. But 
whatever may be the number of church members in populous 
places, or elsewhere, it is indubitable, that immense nntnbers of 
slaves on the plantations are left as ignorant of God aud the gospel, 
as the heathen. As to intellectual illumination, the mind is without 
form and void,— desolation and emptiness. It is like a cheerless des- 
ert, where scarcely a single flower of beauty or genial plant can 
thrive, — where the eye can linger upon nothing but thorns, and 
briers, and noxious weeds ; or it is one unbroken scene of barren- 
ness. This surely is not the best ground for the seed of piety, if 
a spiritual laborer should occasionally enter this vineyard. Think, 
then, of thousands and tens of thousands of immortal beings, coii'^ 
demned, in this land of light, to live without hope and without 
God, and, in this deplorable ignorance and moral debasement, ap>. 
proaching that eternity, where without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord, — and tell me if there is not a tremendous accumulation 
of guilt resting somewhere? And, without prosecuting these state- 
ments, are there not in slavery — in slavery as it exists in our 
own country — moral evils, which ruined eternities alone can esti- 
mate. 

But there is an obstacle to a general and vigorous system of 
instruction among the slaves, which, contemplated in all its rela- 
tions to the present and the future, should press with a moun- 
tain's weight upon the heart of the Christian, and philanthropist, 
and patriot, and rouse the whole nation from its death-like leth- 
argy. — Pious slave-holders have done much for the religion of 
their households. Still there is a popular sentiment, which is 
perfectly natural, that enlightened slaves are dangerous to the 
peace of the oommunity, — that knowledge in the slave is pow- 
er, and power with a vengeance. The doctrine, which we so 
fondly and frequently advocate, in regard to the influence of light 
upon the future fortunes of Europe, Asia, and Africa, certainly 
admits of an application nearer home. — Slaves of the most intel- 
ligence, and slaves of the best previous reputation for piety, have 
sometimes been numbered among insurgents ; while others, pf 
4 



22 SLAVERY. [no. V. 

similar characterj have been induced to reveal the plot of their 
comrades. 

And here I would ask the liberty to suggest a few inquiries, 
which, I expect, v/ili n)eet with a very problematical reception. 
I woidd inquire, whether the slave has not a right to resort to the 
most violent measures, if necessary, in order to obtain his liberty 1 
And if he has the least chance of success, are we not, as rational 
and consistent men, bound to justify him ? The anticipation or the 
tliought of massacres and conflagrations, is indeed beyond endu- 
rance. But is there no right on the part of the slave 1 Who has 
not rejoiced in the liberation of St. Domingo ? Or rather, who 
would be willing to have the Bourbon flag again wave upon that 
etnancipated island ? Why have we felt so deeply interested in 
the splendid march of liberty in the southern hemisphere? What 
right had our fathers to shake oft" the comparatively easy yoke of 
Great Brilian? And had they failed in the war of the revolution, 
and had the most distinguished of the rebels paid the forfeit with 
their lives in the Tower of London, would they have merited ex- 
ecration ? AVhat right have the Greeks to resist the tyranny of 
tjie Porte ? And i-[wuk\f/iri/ fail in their glorious struggle, should 
such gallant spirits as the lamented Bozzaris fall a sacrifice to the 
bow-string of the Grand Seignior, would you dress your counte- 
nance with smiles of joy 1 No — your hearts would wring with ag- 
onized emotion for the martyrs of liberty ; your blood would foam 
with a phrenzy of indignation. And now have you «o tear for 
the poor slave ? Though he has endured worse than Turkish op- 
pression, and ten thousand times ten thousand more than ever our 
fathers suflered, — yet, because he is "guilty of a skin not colour- 
ed like our own," and because he is advertised, and sold, and used 
as a sort of useful domestic animal, must he, when he dares to 
assume the prerogative of every human being, and asserts his 
rights, be gibbetted and burnt ? How strange are tlie inconsisten- 
cies of man ! Washington we almost worship — Lafayette we have 
almost deified — and the name of Bolivar we pronounce with sin- 
cere veneration. JJut an African slave, and a hero of freedom ? 
Impossible. God grant that thePo^^siiuLiTV may never be written 
with the blood of our southern I)rethren. I do not deny tlie right, 
on the ground of political expediency, to put insurgent slaves to 
death. But while I admit, that the pe(»ple of the south are au- 
thorized to adopt every reasonable measure to prevent the hor- 
rors of insurrection, I firmly believe the slave has a right to im- 
mediate liberty, paramount to every claim of his master. This 
conflict of rights and interests, presents itself to my mind, a? one 
of the most ]>ainful and distressing circumstances in the slave- 
holding system. How can d God of impartial justice sanction an 
adventitious necessity, which ex])oses a man to death, for the as- 
sertion of natural and unaHenble rights ? 

In making these strictures, I am conscious of none other tlian 



,'!.] 



93 



the purest motives. I have written with plainness to beintoUiisji- 
ble— with severity because truth and duty demand it. Let no one 
accuse me of dippino- my pen in gall, or of giving expression to 
the ravings of an infuriated imagination. 1 have been conver- 
sant with sober realities. If I have made a single incorrect state- 
ment, or unwarrantable insinuation, no one would more regret it 
than myself. The evils and crimes of slavery are no trivial oi 
venial matters : and the danger* of slavery are something more 
substantial and alarming, than the airy phantoms of bram-sick vi- 
sionaries. But far be it from me " to deal damnatiou round the 
land." Far be it from me to intimate, that all slave holders are 
immoral or cruel. I doubt not, I know, that many of them are 
men of piety, men of benevolence, men of noble, generous feel- 
ings, and men who sincerely deprecate the horrors of the system, 
upon which I have so freely animadverted. Far be it from me to 
wound the feelings of such men. They feel that the present con- 
dition of slavery is chieily e7itui:ed upon them, and that it is al- 
most impossible to extricate themselves from all its evils. But 
they have an immense work to do, and it is high time they were 
more in earnest about it. There are, however, at the south, men 
•who are professedly pious and benevolent, while at the same time, 
they can publish vindications of the right of slavery; and the peo- 
])ie, in general, heartily acquiesce. The indolence of slaves, and 
the danger of the whites, are the greatest evils of the slavc-h.old- 
ing system, according to popular estimation. The people of the 
North, in similar circumstances, would doubtless do and feel as 
the people of the South continue to do and feel. There is a sort 
of infatuation. Even the pious Newton remained in the business 
of the slave-trade, many years after his conversion, without sus- 
pecting or dreaming of wrong. Cut, blessed be God, slavery, with 
all its crimes, and cruelties, and nameless abominations, is rapid- 
ly hastening to an end ; and it is a solemn duty, which every men 
owes to himself, his country, and his God, to accelerate this glor- 
ious consummation. \icon.xii:s. 



If I have been successful in illustrating, that slavery is a viola- 
tion of every principle of right, humanity, and religion, — that the 
legalized allowance of it is a flagrant auomalism in the theory of 
our free institutions, — that it is an alarming political evil, which 
threatens tiie ])eace and prosperity of our republic with ruin or 
incalculable embarrassment, — and that it is an immense moral 
evil, withering or destroying the energies of moral principle, pol- 
luting the home of moral virtue, and thus putting in jeoi;ardy the 
present happiness, and the future salvation of hundreds of tJiou- 



94 sLavERv. [no. VI. 

panels, — a most interesting question seems to arise, "NVbat then is 
to be done 1 

1 answer, the slave-holding sijstevi miisf be abolished; and in 
order to the accompijshmeiat of this end, immediate, determined 
measures must be adopted tor the uitnnate emancipation of every 
slave witliin our territories. But, to emancipate the shives as 
they now are, taken collectitely, and to leave them to provide 
for themselves, though they are at this moment entitled to there 
freedom, would not promise very large accessions to their 
liappiness. Many of them would become miserable vagrants. 
Poverty and dei;radation would cling to them, tdl the last mo- 
ment of life. Certainly we could not expect their condition would 
be superior to that of the Africans among us. And as to these 
last, we are all sensible, that, unless some marvellous revolution 
shall happen to popular feeling and sentiment, they must forever 
be excluded from a free and indiscriminate participalion in the 
rank and privileges of the white inhabitants. The slaves, then, 
must be educated for the enjoyment of freedom, and must be fur- 
nished with a residence, where their color shall subject them to 
no disqualification, — where they can live and act, with all the re- 
sources, and in all the dignity of independent citizens of free com- 
munities. Not only must we, in imitation of the magnanimous 
phihdnthropists of the British Parliament, labor steadily, earnest- 
ly, and progressively, to meliorate their present physical and 
moral condition, but some plan of removal or colonization seen>s 
to be indispensable to the promotion of the best interests of mas- 
ter and slave. A vast Avork is to be done, and every hour of pro- 
crastination enhances its formidable difficulties. Perhaps no 
single remedy will he sufficient. Let the slaves throughout the 
country be liberated as fast as possible. Let them have an oj)- 
portuiiity to obtain a competent subsistence, and more, by the em- 
ployments of freemen. If Congress shall make an appropriation 
of land, let it not be neglected. If Hayti throws open her doors, 
let them be entered. Li a word, if any jiroject be devised, which 
promises to hasten the exterminaticm of slavery, and imjtrove the 
condition of ihe slave, let it be encouraged, and urged onward. 
Every citizen in the country is bound to do something, and let 
every one do it in the way, which his wisdom or inclination a])- 
proves. But I may be allowed to suggest to the reader of these 
articles, whether (he plan of the American Colonization Society 
is not the most ilalfeiin^f and magniiicent, whicli has ever been 
proj)osed to our benevolence, i)atriotit>m, and piety. Is it not a 
how of promise upon the j)ortentous cloud, that overhangs the 
destinies of Ame}ica? Why cannot tlie whole nation ])atronize 
the object, as a common interest ? Let all sectional jealousies 
be buried, and with more sincerity and permanency, than The- 
mistocles and Aristides buried their animosities, when the inter- 
ests of their commcm country were endangered. — Let us unite in 
thia cause of nature, and man, and God, like a symjnithising 



XO. YI.] SLAVEnV. 25 

community of brethren. Let the liberal devise liberal things. 
Let the South give up, and let the North keep not back. Let the 
Government discharge its high obligations with corresponding 
energy and promptitude. And then, by the blessing of Heaven, 
numerous Colonies will be planted upon the shores of Africa, 
where the free people of color and manumitted slaves will settle 
down under the banner of freedom, civilization, and the cross ; 
the way will be opened for the ultimate annihilation of slavery 
at home, and the most valuable facilities will be afforded for ac- 
celerating the entire suppression of the slave-trade ; for introduc- 
ing into the interior of benighted, long-neglected, and insulted 
Africa, the light of the gospel, and the sources of that moral and 
intellectual elevation, ".which ennobles the human character, 
and swells the tide of human happiness." Never was an enter- 
prize projected by man, that could claim a larger amount of 
moral grandeur. It alms to reinove all the dangers, which throio a 
gloom over the brightest anticipations of our country'' s glory ; to 
secure for the slave the redemption of his body, and that liberty 
wherewith Christ can make him free : — while in its final results, it 
sees every hand in Ethiopia stretched out unto God, 

It is a most humiliating consideration, that the battles of hu- 
manity must be fought over and over again — that every inch of 
ground must be contested. Though it is perfectly obvious to ev- 
ery reflecting mind, that nothing, which is to be aftected by fu- 
ture contingencies, can ever be accomplished, if all possible or 
imaginary obstacles are first to be removed, yet there never has 
been a plan, however grand and benevolent, that has not been 
doomed to encounter the objections of the heartless, calculating, 
cold-blooded policy of selfishness and avarice. 

Am I told, in the language of a common proverb, "it takes all 
sorts of people to make a world" — the population you wish to el- 
evate and colonize, is indispensable to our convenience and com- 
fort, — and besides, they are well enough as they are ! Better far 
to say, the world is full of " all sorts of people," and it is high 
time it was not. The most ignorant, degraded, and vicious in the 
community, I suppose, are all " well enough ;" — barbarians and 
heathen every where are all well enough. " Ignorance is bliss, 
'tis folly to be wise." The dark places of the earth are full of 
the habitations of innocence. The doctrine is unquestionable, as 
maintained by the mysterious and inexplicable Rousseau, that 
happiness is in the inverse ratio of improvement : that is to say, 
the savage with his wigwam, or his bear-skin, or the canopy of 
heaven for his shelter, and the game of the forest for his precari- 
ous subsistence, is much happier than he would be in the eleva- 
tion of civilized society— in the dignity and glory of intellectual 
being — in the elysium of " thoughts that wander through eterni- 
ty." These are not my sentiments. I would bring down 
knowledge and morality to every man's door. I would carry in- 



2^(3 SLAVERY. [no. VI. 

to the lowest cell of obscurity and want, the Lopes, and consola- 
tions, and riches of that gospel, v.hich was first preached to the 
poor by the Creator and Redeemer of the world. Let every man 
in the community, no matter where his lot may have been cast, 
every man on earth — know and feel, that he is not a mere ani- 
mal ; but that his God has implanted within him a germ of im- 
)nortality, — to flourish hereafter in Paradise above, or to wither 
amidst the cheerlessncss of irremediable desolation. The spec- 
tacle of ignorance, intellectual, and especially moral, which may 
be seen in the most enlightened portions even of our own coun- 
try, is painful in the extreme to the man of sympathy and love. 
And it is not too much to say, that he, who deliberately opposes 
the elevation of the slaves, the free People of Color, and the low- 
er orders of the white population, is a traitor to humanity — is 
more unchristian than a heathen — more inhuman than a brute. 
There is no necessity, that all the treasures of science, or of an 
independent fortune, should be laid at every man's feet. Moral 
worth is the true criterion. It is the criterion of God, and where 
this is wanting', of what avail is the music of popular applause, 
or the glittering magnificence of wealth. I love, indeed, to see 
moral excellence in the companionship of riches, honor, and re- 
finement, but I have yet to learn, that the brilliant saloon is any 
more congenial to the unobtrusive loveliness of virtue, than the 
homely retirement of the poor man's dwelling. The artificial 
distinctions of civil society are in themselves no standard of true 
greatness — no test of moral character. 

" Pigmies arc pigmies still — though pcrclied on Alpsr 

" And pyramids iire pyramids in vidcs. 

*' Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids: 

'• Ilcr monuments shall last when Egypt's fall." 

The ignorant and degraded of every nation or clime must bo 
enlightened and elevated, before our earth can have honor in the 
universe. I do not ask you to build a palace for the free or the 
enslaved African, — to clothe him with purple and fine linen, — to 
load his table with luxuries. But I do ask, that he no longer 
be suffered to grovel in the dust, or to bend and writhe under the 
chains of bondage. If any portion of our soil cannot be cultivat- 
ed by the labors of intelligent frcetnan, — rather than have it wa- 
tered with the tears, and stained with the pollutions of slavery — 
let it become a howling wilderness. Let it " never be inhabit- 
ed," nor be " dwell in from generation to generation." But let 
" the wild beasts of tiie earth lie there ; and the hou.'^es be full of 
doleful creatures; and the owls dwell there, and the satyrs dance 
there. And the wild beasts of the islands cry in their desolate 
liouses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces." 

To emancipate and provide for the slaves, will be the work of 
years ; and will require a large expenditure. Nomatter, if for the 
next fifty ora hundred years, it should cost an annual sum, equal to 



NO. VI.] SLAVEUY. r^7 

The whole revenue of the United States. What is gold in coinpari- 
sou with the ohject ? What is gold, when the interests of millions 
are at stake ? 13etter, infinitely better, that every citizen, from 
Maine to Florida, should be reduced to penury, than that slavery, 
with its horrid retinue of guilt and wretchedness, should continue 
in our land. But no such sacrifice is necessary. " The world,' 
said Mr. Pitt, "are under obligations to civilize Africa." And what 
nation owes a larger debt, than we do 1 In the payment, we are 
all holden. Millions of treasure at the North, though there are 
now but few slaves, were accumulated by means of " sinews 
bought and sold." And when a regard to the rights of man, the 
love of country, and the threatening justice of Almighty God, de- 
mand, that we aid in exterminating slavery among us, where is 
the man, so mercenary, so selfish, so hardened, so regardless of 
his duty and his God, that he would, 

" For vile contiiminatlng trash — throw up 

" His hope in licaveu — -his dignity with man." 

I envy not the little soul, that never learned the " luxury of do- 
ing good." I envy not the man, who closely hugs his pelf to his 
bosom, and would not lift a finger to relieve a brother's wants, or 
to raise him from debasement. I envy not his communion with 
his conscience. And I covet not his feelings, when, in the last 
struggles of expiring nature, and with the last liglit of heaven, that 
falls upon his eye, he "reads his riches backward into loss." 

In closing these articles, the writer, aware of many of their im- 
perfections, submits them to the candor and moral sense of his 
readers. If any incorrectness of sentiment, or intemperance of 
language has escaped him, he asks that indulgence, which is the 
birth-right of erring humanity. He may be pitied far his weak- 
ness or delusion : — would to heaven it were his weakness or de- 
lusion. Defend or extenuate slavery, as you may — use all your 
logic and casuistry in an exculpation of the present owners 
of slaves — talk, as you will, of the impracticableness of culti- 
vating the Southern soil without slave-labor, or of the necessity of 
such a debased population — and mourn as you please the dreaded 
loss of property from the abolition of involuntary servitude — sla- 
very is a curse to our country, and our brethren at the South are 
dwelling in the midst of volcanoes. Dr. Firman may publish 
another pamphlet in vindication of the right of slavery and the 
slave-trade ; the Governor of Georgia may reiterate his raving 
messages; and the majority of our slave holding fellow citizens 
may flatter themselves, that all is well ; there is not a moment to be 
lost. The evils of slavery are every day growing with our growth, 
and strengthening beyond our strength. And delightful as it may 
be for the patriot to anticipate the period, when the busy hum of a 
free, industrious, and happy population, rising on these Eastern 
-jjiores, and swelling acroe-s the valley of Missouri, shall at last 



as SLAVERY. [no. V-T. 

slumber in silence on the bosom of the Pacific, it becomes him to 
remember and ponder well, that futurity may prove his anticipa- 
tions the airy sketches of a playful fancy, or the evanescent visions 
of a fervid imagination ; it becomes him to remember and ponder 
well, that there is a leprosy, that infects not merely the fairest robes 
and the extremities, but is preyingin the very vitals of our republic ; 
— that the slave, degraded, abused, and shorn of his strength, as 
he now is,may ere-longrisein an agony of desperation, like Samp^ 
son upon Philistia's taunting chivalry — and thrusting aside the 
pillars of our union and our greatness, lay our pride and our glo- 
ry in ruins. We have no time to waste in controversy. What 
we do for Africa, for our country, for the generations that now 
sleep within us, we must do quickly, or never. Tomorrow, our 

" Summons comes to join 
" The innumerable caravan, that moves 
" To the pale realms of shade ;" 

to that world of eternal retribution, where the distinctions of earth 
are levelled ; — lohere the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
■weary are at rest. There the prisoners rest together ; they hear not 
the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there ; and the 
slave is fret from his master. Vigornius, 



••©•♦ 



Note. The first of the foregoini; papers was- published in the Rccordcp 
and Telegraph, June 24th,— the last, July2*Jth, 1825. TJie Essays which fol- 
fow, are arranged in the ordex of original publication. 



SLAVERY. 



29 



SLAVElf^. 



From the Recorder &,• Telegraph, Sept. 9, 1825. 

Messrs. Editors, — The liberal views, and free discussion, which have ?o 
long characterized your excellent paper, and given it an extensive circulation 
through the country, have induced ine to beg tiie favor of addressing, through 
this niediuin, the author of six numbers, which you published on the subject 
of slaverv ; and, also, the aufhor of two pieces, on the same subject, published 
in the March and May Numbers of the New Haven Christian Spectator. By 
granting this, you will confer an obligation on an unknown reader of the Re- 
corder &. Telegraph. 

Gentlemen, — I have read your papers with some attention, 
and not a little surprise. They arc such as I had not anticipated 
from the pen of any enlightened author of the nineteenth century. 
They contain sentiments, which I believe neither civil policy, nor 
the feelings of humanity, nor principles of religion, can justify — 
exhibit a spirit unlike that of the Christian, the statesman, or the 
philosopher — and tend to destroy the domestic, the social, and 
the civil happiness of all concerned. I feel myself therefore bound 
as a man, as a friend of my country, and as a Christian, to state 
to you plainly, my views of the sentiments, the spirit, and the 
tendency of your papers. 

1. Their sentiments. They are such as have often been ex- 
pressed by those, who are perfectly unacquainted with the real 
state of slavery, as it now exists in this country — who are in the 
habit of viewing every subject in the abstract — who would have 
every thing as it ought to be, or rather as they desire it ; and not 
as a wise Providence has ordered it. That these sentiments are 
all erroneous, I would not venture to assert ; but that they are 
brought to bear on a point, and were designed to enforce a senti- 
ment, absolutely wrong and fraught with danger, I do most sin- 
cerely believe, and boldly affirm. The leading sentiment of these 
papers, the one they were designed to inculcate, is, that there 
must and will be an entire and immediate* abolition of slavery. 
This is expressed in the following language, " We may as well 
look the subject fairly in the face, and make up our minds, that 
the point to be aimed at is the entire and speedy abolition of sla- 

^ " A Carolinian" certainly misunderstands the author of " six numbers," 
if he supposes him to be the advocate o{ immediate emancipation, as applied 
to the whole body of slaves. He does indeed use the expression " speedy ab- 
olition of slavery;" but besides, that there is nothing hi the word "speedy," 
which would imply immcdiatc7icss, the gencn\\ course of remark he pursues, 
would not at all admit of such an interpretation. Accordingly, in another 
place he says, " To emancipate and provide for the slave*, will be the Work of 
venr? " Etls. 



30 SLAVERY. 

very ; For wlicther v.e choose it or not, the thing will be done."' 
To render this true requires, I apprehend, aid more than human. 
I do not believe, that any power on earth is sufficient to accom- 
plish it. And unless divine assistance has been guaranteed for 
the immediate removal of slavery, it will exist for years, and prob- 
ably for ages yet to come. — It is further stated, that " Emancipa- 
tion must take place on the spot where slavery exists. Nothing 
short of this will meet the exigency ; and we shall only be throw- . 
ing dust in each others eyes, if we talk of any thing short of this. 
"We may inquire and debate, and exercise all the wisdom we have 
about the details of the mode in which it is to be done, but the 
thing to be done is incapable of alteration or debate. It can nei- 
ther^'be divided nor shunned. It is just one simple thing, and is 
to be taken so as much as a declaration of war." These extracts 
from the Spectator, present in a few words, the grand sentiment 
that runs through all these papers, and which they were particu- 
larly designed to enforce. There is one, however, worse than 
this, contained in No.A^ published in the Recorder and Telegraph. 
It is too shocking to the feelings of humanity to mention. The 
bare thought makes the blood chill, and run back upon the aching 
heart. I turn from it, as from ore, that will find an advocate in 
none, but the enemy of man.— With reference to the general sen- 
timent of these papers, then, let me ask. Is all further discussion on 
the subject of slavery to be abandoned, and our national govern- 
ment regardless of the feelings and interest of their constituents, si- 
lently to adopt a measure, which shall set at liberty two millions of 
Ignorant slaves at once ; and thus reduce many in affluence to beg- 
gary, and also destroy the civil institutions and political importance 
of one half of these United States ? I trust that such a measure 
would find no advocate in our halls of legislation. Does human- 
ity require, that these ignorant, degraded, and unprincipled be- 
ings should be let loose to butcher those they have been accustom- 
ed to fear, and then murder each other or starve to death ? It 
would be a scene at which weeping humanity woidd recoil. Do 
the principles of our holy religion call for the speedy liberation of 
those, who are incapable of governing or providing for them- 
selves ; and whose unbounded licentiousness would influence 
them to violate all its holy precepts, and tramjde on most sacred 
rights of God and man ? I believe this golden rule of doing unto 
others as we would be done by, and the command not to do evil 
that good may come, require any thing rather than this. Or, do 
you mean to be understood as expressing the sentiment of those, 
who are determined at all hazards to eflect the " entire and spee- 
dy abolition of slavery." — who are re;uly to declare war with 
their brethren, and carry their point with the bayonet ? If so, be 
assured you arc engaged in a des|)(!rate cause. The idea of im- 
mediate aiul complete emancipation is preposterous. It is in di- 



SLAVERY. *Jl 

rfcci opposiliou to every principle of civil policy, the better feel- 
ings of humanity, and the plain precepts of the gospel. 

)i. Their spirit. Tliis is a delicate point, and must be touched 
lightly. When we come to speak of the spirit by which men are 
influenced, or the motives by which they are actuated, we feel 
ourselves to be on dangerous ground : For we are ever liable to 
be deceived, and to ascribe to them the same spirit that reigns 
in our own bosoms. And knowing that the best of men are some- 
times under the influence of a wrong spirit, I would not presume 
to say, that tlie sjnrit here exhibited might not dwell in the breast 
of a sincere disciple of Christ; but I do say, that it is unlike his 
own, and one that lie will never approve. It is entirely destitute 
of that meekness and humility so characteristic of himself and 
his true followers. Neither can I discern any marks of greatnesi<, 
which entitle it to a rank among those master sjjirits, which ani- 
mate the bosoms of enlightened statesmen. It suggests none of 
those bold and original thoughts, and excites none of those noble 
and generous feelings, which are the spontaneous growth of a 
great mind. Nor can I for a moment associate it witli the liighjer 
order of spirits, which lie concealed from the common eye of in- 
spection, in the bosoms of thinking philosophers. It pays no re- 
spect to facts, on which alone philosophy has ever deigned to 
form an argument, or attempted to support any ppsition. 

3. Their tendency. This is most pernicious, and most to be 
dreaded. They tend to excite all the unsanctified passions of 
the depraved heart, to suppress the benevolent eftbrts of the wise 
and pious, and to render more severe and more lasting the evils 
of slavery. The erroneous sentiments of these papers, supported 
only by bold assertions, will never convince the mind that thinks 
for itself; neither will they make men of the world willing to give 
up their possessions, their all, to gratify the caprice of the envious. 
On the contrary-, they set their souls on fire, and influence them 
to call down heaven's severest curses on those, who advance them 
— to view with a jealous eye every exertion made to meliorate 
the condition of the slave — and to draw harder the cord, that 
holds their possessions. Neither have such sentiments ever re- 
ceived the approbation of the enlightened and judicious, or served 
to forward the great cause of Christian benevolence, in which 
they are engaged. They only check their operations ; render 
them objects of suspicion and hatred, and blast their hopes of 
promoting the temporal and eternal happiness of their fellow 
men. Nor have they ever rendered the slave's condition more 
desirable, or advanced one step towards his emancipation. They 
rather serve to make his situation more unwelcome, by exciting 
the visionary hope of a speedy freedom ; and his servitude more 
lasting, by stopping the general progress of light and knowledge. 
Such being the tendency of these papers, or rather of the senti- 
ments they contain, I cannot but view them as peniicions and 



3d 



SiLAVEUV 



dangerous. Should they be fully realized in tins couunumty, 1 
have no doubt they would entirely and forever destroy our do- 
mestic peace, social happiness, and civil union. I therefore dep- 
recate them, as I would a deadly blow aimed at all we hold dear • 

A Carolinian. 

SLAVERY. 

From the Recorder S^ Telegraph, Sept, 23, 1825. 

Messrs. Editors, — Though I am not at all responsible for the 
papers signed " Vigornius" in your journal, or for those signed S. 
F. D. in the Christian Spectator, yet I feel some interest in the sub- 
ject to which they and the remarks of "A Carolinian" relate. From 
the candor and good feelings which I think I can discern in this 
latter writer, I wish most earnestly to draw from him a statement 
of the feelings and expectations of our southern brethren, respect- 
ing the continuing or the removing of slavery. Although 1 think 
the two first mentioned writers have been so explicit, and have in 
some parts of their communications introduced such qualifica- 
tions, that I can pronounce their general views to be in accord- 
ance with my own ; yet I would not adopt all the strong ex])res- 
sions of either, nor give utterance to some of their sentiments 
without additional qualifications. 

So far from wishing, that the slaves shoidd be immediately 
emancipated, unless some special provision could be made for 
them (I believe I speak the language of those, who have thought 
and felt most on the subject in New England,) we think it would 
be great cruelty both to them and to thr- white population. But 
at the same time we are of opinion, that if imnudiate emancipatiuii 
of the slaves should take place, it would only be discharging a 
small part of the obligations we are under to them. They have, 
in the course of a mysterious Providence, been thrown upon our 
hands ; they have been tremendously wronged by us ; they have 
contributed to our ease and wealth, — and we are not to turn them 
off with bare freedom, when through our instrumentality or neg- 
lect they have been wholly discpialified to conduct themselves pro- 
perly in such a state, or even to enjoy it. Benevolence and justice 
unitedly and loudly demand, thai we teach them how, and place 
them in circumstances, to do both. We do not ask or wish our 
brethren of the South to turntheir slaves loose without knowledge, 
■without moral principle, without any habits of subjection except 
to the rod of an overseer. We aim at doing something, — and we 
9sk them, and say they ought, at once, to engage with us in doing 
something, — more conducive to the interest of the negro, and as 
we think, more conducive to the interest of the white man too. 
We ask them to engage in a series of prosjieetive measures, which 



SLAVERY. 



33 



.shall lend to fit the negro to be free. We ask them to make laws 
to meliorate the condition of the slave, — to encourage enterprize 
— to diftuse knowledge — to instil moral principle — to facilitate 
self-emancipation. We ask them to fasten their eyes on ultimate 
and total emancipation, as the only course which humanity, or 
justice, or patriotism, permits them to take. We ask them to 
come to a settled conclusion, that, whatever sacrifices they must 
make — whatever changes in their domestic economy it may ren- 
der necessary — whatever labours it may cost them — their slaves 
must be emancipated, and made to enjoy the blessings of civil lib- 
erty, and the dearer blessings of knowledge and Christianity ; 
that this debt must be discharged. And when they have come to 
this practical conclusion, we ask them to advance one step farther, 
and determine that plans must be formed, and measures of opera- 
tions adopted, ivithout delay ; great plans — efficient measures — 
for there is a great and most difficult work to be accomplished. 
We are convinced, and if our Southern brethren are not con- 
vinced, we wish to convince them, and think with a little discus- 
sion we could convince them, that to postpone these prospective 
measures a day, is a great criine ; — that their having been post- 
poned so long, is also a great crime ; — and moreover, we wish to 
state distinctly, that this postponement is that, in which we 
consider the guilt of slavery, so far as the present proprietors are 
concerned, to consist : and we wish, even if we do not repeat it, 
whenever we speak of the crime of slavery, to be understood 
to have reference to this, and this alone. 

We do not mean by these remarks to exclude from our moral 
estimate the fact, that slavery gives opportunity, and presents ex- 
citements, to indulge the worst passions of our nature, and that in 
this way also, the toleration of it becomes the source of a multi- 
tude of moral evils, the guilt of which is to be attributed to the 
slave system ; but these, though the invariable concomitants of it, 
are in some measure adventitious. 

Now, in view of these evils, we wish to know, what plans, what 
expectations our brethren of the South have formed on the subject ; 
and what are their desires. Let them lay their finger upon their 
plans. Let them state explicitly and delinitely to what conclu- 
sions they have come respecting the continuance, or the methods 
of removing the evils of slavery. We do not say this in the lan- 
guage of authority or reproach. It is a subject, however, in which 
we teel deeply, and have a right so to feel. We consider it the 
cause of humanity — of justice — of patriotism ; and in tliis cause 
we profess to have embarked. We wish most heartily, that our 
Southern brethren would go fork a rd in this business; Ave will 
most cheerfully take our proper place of subsidiaries in the great 
national work, and would gladly avail ourselves of the advice of 
those who, from their circumstances and experience, are so well 
nble to give it. — If we have entered upon this matter with a wrong 



JJ4 SLAVERTi. 

spirit, let them show wherein it is so. If wc have proi"!Osed wroiK' 
measures, or made erroneous statements, let them show how and 
where. 

Our Southern brethren must not however expect to deter us 
from our purpose, by presenting to us the frightful images of in- 
surrections, massacres, and servile war. AVe have long had in our 
minds, images as frightful as these ; images, which are only im- 
ages of really existing evils connected with this system ; and 
though they have been in our contemplations long, and we have 
very often compared them with insurrections and servile war, yet 
we hardly know which to look upon with the least agitation. Ei- 
ther class are awful enough to make any feeling man tremble, and 
to call for immediate and powerful remedies. In forming an esti- 
mate of these calamities, our results differ from those of our South- 
ern brethren ; perhaps, from the circumstances that we have no 
partialities for the white man, above what we have for the colored 
man. We sympathize as much with the latter, when he is wrong- 
ed, or in distress, as we do with the former ; and in all our contem- 
plations on this subject, we take into view the prospects of th€ 
one as well as those of the other. 

Nor are we to be deterred from our purpose, by being told that 
we are ignorant of the whole subject. Of many of the details of 
slavery we doubtless are, and ever desire to be ignorant ; but of 
its general features, and principles, and influence, we claim to have 
some knowledge, and that too from authentic sources. Nor should 
we lind it necessary to confine ourselves to minute instances of 
rare outrage and cruehy — but would look only to evils which are 
either literally coextensive with the slave territory, or are gene- 
ral throughout it. 

There is, as yet, if it were my business, no need of defending 
any of the leading positions taken by either of the writers on 
whom " A Carolinian" has remarked, because their reasoning has 
not, as yet, been shown to be fallacious ; and in those cases where 
there is nothing but assertion, the propositions of these writers 
seem so obviously tlie dictates of common sense, at least, of com- 
mon sense in this jOvc country, that it would be difficult to say 
where to l)cgin, or what method to take to illustrate them, until 
we know in what way they will be attacked. We are, however, 
by no means averse to a full discussion of this whole subject : — 
On the contrary, there is nothing which we more desire, than to 
learn from our Soutliern brethren themselves, what their creed 
on the slave system is. Do they wish to have any thing done to- 
wards the abolition of slav«M-y \ Do they wish to have it done as 
speedily as possible ? Do they believe that any thing f«?/ be done ? 
Do they believe there is any injustice in reducing their fellow 
men to servitude, and in keeping them so, without making any 
efforts to give them freedom, and knowledge, and Christianity ? 
Or, do they believe that God bus so constituted us and them, and 



NO. I.] SLAVERY. 35 

SO arranged things in his providence, that this multitude must, 
unavoidably, not only have been for centuries, but must still be, 
indefinitely deprived and kept destitute of every thing, which eno- 
bles and blesses man; and this, through our oppressions, and to 
subserve our interests ? — And can all this be without guilt 1 We 
think slavery so great a national calamity, and crime too ; — one 
so threatening in its aspect, one which so much involves our na- 
tional character, — that it ought to enlist the feelings of the whole 
nation; that their wisdom and energy ought to be concenti'ated 
upon it. We do not Avish for force or legislative enactments : — 
certaiidy not till our nation is more united in feeling concerning 
the subject than it is now ; but we wish to have the subject pre- 
sented to our whole population in its true colors — we wish to pro- 
duce in the minds of all a proper state of feeling — and we expect, 
and wish, for no other cure of the numberless and aggravated 
evils attending slavery, than change in public opinion. We there- 
fore look to a discussion of its principles and influence, as the 
means of developing truth, and etfecting this change. 

Philo. 



SLAVERir. No. Z. 

From the Recorder S/- Telegraph, Sept. 30,1825. 

Messrs Editors,— 'Permit a Southern-man, who is a subscri- 
ber and constant reader of your very valuable paper, to throw in 
a word or two on the subject, which a writer under the signature 
of Vigornius has been discussing, in six numbers, and to which 
another writer, under the signature of A Carolmian, has taken 
exception. To give you my own views in full on this interesting 
topic, would require a space in your columns at least as large as 
has been occupied by the former of your correspondents, and it 
is not impossible, that, if I can command sufficient leisure,! may 
yet have to crave the indulgence of your readers for occupying 
so much of their attention. 

The topic in question is certainly assuming more and more mo- 
ment and magnitude, as well from the existing and in some re- 
spect continually progressing, state of the world, as from recent 
important occurrences in our own country. 

I take it for granted, Messrs. Editors, that Vigornius and the 
writers on slavery in the Christian Spectator, are actuated by 
pure and upright motives in their strictures on this, as well as on 
every other matter, which they discuss. The general character 
of both works, their tendency, and the objects they aim at, justi- 
fy me in this conclusion. I feel equal satisfaction in believing, 
that A Carolinian has right feelings in the remarks he has made, 
and in the exceptions he has taken. For if I do not misunder- 



36 



SLAVER1-. 



[no. J. 



stand him, he uilniits, certainly he does not deny, the correctness 
of the main positions taken by the writers, on whom he animad- 
verts : that, viewing slavery in the abstract, their views harmon- 
ize ; but, that in the character of it, as it exists in the United 
States, the degree of guilt involved in it, and the means of ridding 
ourselves of it, the ditierence of opinion chiefly, if not exclusive- 
ly consists. 

I am firm in the conviction, and happy in being able to cherish 
such a conviction, that, whatever differences of opinion and of 
feeling may exist between Northern and Southern politicians and 
worldlings. Northern and Southern Christians almost entirely ac- 
cord in sentiment ; or if they do not, that a fair, and candid, and 
thorough mutual discussion, would in a little time bring them into 
a harmonious state of thinking and feeling on this subject. 

Under this impression, I have more than once very deeply re- 
gretted, that, mixed with or interspersed among many valuable re- 
marks and accurate reasonings in the essays of some of the best 
religious papers at the North, there should have appeared from 
time to time so much of misrepresentation as to facts, and of ex- 
aggeration, where the facts themselves Avere on the whole true, as 
to have excited disgust in some of the best people at the South, 
and to have disqualified them for looking into the subject as calm- 
ly, and discussing it as thoroughly, as they otherwise might, and 
I believe would have done. This mis-statement or exaggeration 
of facts, and reflection on character by some good men at the 
North, have excited at the South much of a correspondent spirit, 
and induced good men there to " speak unadvisedly with their 
lips," in reference to their Northern brethren. 

If Northern writers really design in their remarks and reason- 
ings on the subject of slavery, to favour the cause of emancipation, 
or to meliorate the condition of the blacks until they are emanci- 
pated, they ought to be sensible, that they can do neither without 
Southern co-operation ; or if they succeed at all in cither respect, 
it nuist be by nuich slower degrees and a more tedious process. 
liut lot them write and act discreetly, (with this qualification I 
care not then how vifforoif:</i/,) let them take care to be rather be- 
low, than beyond the truth in their statements of the treatment the 
blacks receive ; let them give us full credit for the amount and 
number of their privileges, &c. ; and they will carry along with 
them, many Southern hearts and hands, the former of which will 
grow cold, and the latter hang idly down, when a diflcrent course 
is pursued. I have been more than once grieved and oftended, to 
see in Northern journals instances of severe treatment of slaves, 
that are of rare occurrence ; and that excite nearly, if not quite as 
much abhorrence at the South as at the North, exhibited in such 
a manner as to produce the impression, that these are only spe- 
cimens of what is common. As Americans, we have often com- 
plaimid of the injustice done us in books of travels, written by 



NO. I.] SLAVERY. 37 

foreigners, wlio have had a transient residence among us, and 
who, for want of time, industry, care, or impartiahty, have fla- 
grantly misrepresented the American people. Equal reason have 
the inhabitants of the region I reside in, to complain of the injus- 
tice done us by our Northern brethren. And however good may 
be their motives, which I do not wish to be so uncharitable as to 
impeach, the effect has been most inauspicious on the only peo- 
ple, who have it in their power to remedy real grievances, which 
may be complained of, but from whom the disposition to do so, 
when it exists, is taken away by this ungenerous treatment. And 
while we have been charged as a communitij with sins, the guilt 
of which belongs to individuals^ there is, an apparent reluctance 
fo admit statements of the good, which many are doing or attempt- 
ing to do. 

There is, F am aware, much difference in different slave states, 
and even in different parts of the same state, as to the number, and 
kind, and degrees of hardships, which the slaves labour under on 
the one hand, and the nature, extent, and variety of their privile- 
ges on the other. But when a Northern pen undertakes to in- 
flict castigation on a Soutliern culprit, it is important, as far as it 
can be done, that the reader should know where that culprit is. 
Otherwise, we Southerners, whose blood imbibes much of the 
caloric belonging to our climate, become so combustible, that the 
fire is with difliculty extinguished, and abandoning " our argu- 
ments," whether we have " exhausted" them or not, we conclude 
to "standby our arms." If Virginia, for example, has done some- 
thing either by her legislatuie or her people, which ought not to 
be done, and she is corrected for it, either by " the scourge of 
the tongue or pen," unless she is very definitely specified, as 
meant, Carolina or Georgia will writhe under the stroke. I re- 
member an occurrence, tlmt took place a kw years since, when 
the Panoplist was living. Virginia had passed some abominable 
act, the design of which (if I recollect right; if I am wrong, t 
wish to be set right,) was to suppress Sabbath Schools, and to 
prevent the religious instruction of the blacks. Some strong and 
able hand undertook to administer the discipline of powerful ar- 
gument to her back ; but the lash of his whip was so long, that 
it reached several hundred miles farther, than perhaps he who 
handled it, intended ; at all events farther than the immediate 
and original occasion required, and many Carolinians cried out, 
" he is scourging us, and we do not deserve it ; for we have not 
committed the alleged fault." In plain language, the author pas- 
sed from the immediate occurrence, which put his pen in motion, to 
a discussion of the evils of slavery in general, its deteriorating ten- 
dency, &c. and some of his readers in a different part of the coun- 
try from that in which the princij)al evil complained of existed, ap- 
plied the whole of his remarks, from first to last, to themselves, 
and cried out, "he means us." I trust therefore, that for the 

e 



38 " sLAVKn\. [no. i. 

general good, icktncver it can he done, writers will localize (if I 
ai;iy so speak) their remarks more than they sometimes do. 

Slavery exhibits a very ditierent aspect in difterent slave-hold- 
ing states, or difterent parts of the same state, according to the 
circumstances in which it exists, or by which it is surrounded. 
Where there is a powerful religious influence existing, and gospel 
institutions exist in all their strength and vigor, many a son of 
Belial, who would, if he could, rival the barbarity of the monster, 
that tears the children of Africa from their OAvn shores, has " a 
bridle put into his mouth, and a hook in his jaws," by the pre- 
dominant influence of public opinion. He dare not act out the 
wickedness of his heart ; it would be as unpopular in the eyes of 
his neighbour, as it is detestable in the view of his God. And if 
Christian influence is considerable in a community, it will be im- 
parted to those, who legislate for them and by their appointment. 
The laws therefore of diffierent slave holding states will savour of 
cruelty or of kindness to those, that are in bondage, just in pro- 
portion to the strength of Christian influence in the community. 
Hence, while some legislatures have passed penal laws against 
instructing the blacks to read, and some, if 1 mistake not, even 
against their religious instruction, others have left the communi- 
ty free and unfettered on that important subject. While Virgin- 
ia has been rigorous, (and let me add rigorously sinful) in her re- 
strictions here, South Carolina has opposed no obstacle in the 
way of a good man's conscience in the duty of instructing his 
slaves. And it is too late in the day to attempt it now. 

While on this topic, Messrs. Editors, permit me to dissent from 
a position, which Northern writers on slavery seem to have as- 
sumed, as possessing the certainty of a maxim. The amount of 
it is this, that the legislative acts of any State area fair criterion, 
by Avhich to judge of the opinions, the spirit, and the feelings of 
the people. This sentiment cannot be admitted without, in ma- 
ny cases, very much qualification. Many laws, severe in their 
aspect, owe their origin to certain emergencies, which produce 
great excitement at the time. Such laws, though remaining on 
our statute books, become obsolete in fact afterwards, and pass 
away with the occasion that gave rise to them. Wliat would be 
thought of the character of South Carolina for example, if we 
judged of it by an existing law which enacts, that all assemblages 
of blacks for religious worship are unlawful, unless a majority ot 
whites are present. Such a law in its letter puts our slaves under 
the ban of the emj)ire, as to all social worship among themselves, 
as eflectually, as though they were under tbe thumb of his Holi- 
ness at Rome. But the i)itention ol" the law was to counteract 
insurrectionary schemes, which have almost always been engen- 
dered and cherished at meetings professedly religious. The ol>' 
ject <»f the law therefore is completely gained, and the spirit of it 
complied with, if three or four white persons, possessing the con- 



NO. II.] SLAVERY. W 

fidence of the community, are found in an assembly of 2 or 300 
slaves. Such is the language of fact now, even in that state, 
which has so recently been agitated with apprehensions of an in- 
surrection. I must maintain therefore, that it is an untenable 
position, to say, that in all instances, the laAvs of a state, or nation, 
are a certain index t-o its spirit and character. 

I have much to say on the topic I have taken up, and I want to 
say it all, if I can find time and health for the purpose. Much that 1 
may say, will probably be condemned at the South ; and much 
perhaps at the North. But wishing to divest myself of all influ- 
ences either of hope or fear, approbation or disapprobation, wheth- 
er by Southerners, among whom T dwell, and among whom my 
attachments and affections, interests and connections lie, or by 
Northerners, many of whom are deservedly dear to me, it is my 
desire to speak plain, unvarnished truth. My inquiries arc touch- 
ing these two points principally. Is slavery lawful or unlawful ; 
and if lawful, under what circumstances ? that is the first question. 
The 2d is, if unlawful slavery exists in any community, what is 
the f/tf^y of a person who resides in such community, both his du- 
ty as an indivirlual, for the guidance of his own conscience, and 
his duty as a member of the community, whom he is bound to in- 
fluence by all means in his power, to do what is right 1 The only 
principles, upon which I consider, that this subject can be treated 
fairly, are those contained in the scriptures, and (to an American.) 
those contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Con- 
stitution of the United States. To whatever conclusion such an 
inquiry logically and legitimately leads, I would attach the mot- 
to, " Fiat justitia: ruat coelum." 

HiERONYMUS. 

SEiAVZiElT. mo. ££. 

From the Recorder &^ Telegraph Oct. 7, 1825. 
Messrs. Editors, — I asked a place in your columns, to takfc 
some part in a discussion, which had been pursued to a consider- 
able extent in journals at the North, but had undergone little or 
no investigation at the South. As one residing in this' latter re- 
gion, I apprehended it might be in my power to give more correct 
views, so far as facts are concerned, of the real state of things in 
the slave-holding states, than could be given, or at least than 
were frequently given, in New England ; while at the same time, 
it must be fully and freely admitted, that on the abstract question 
of slavery, its consistency or inconsistency with the word of God, 
its congruity or incongruity with the fundamental principles of 
the DeclarJTtion of Independence, and with the American Constitu- 
tion, a Northern pen was just as competent as a Southern to do jus- 



40 al.AVKRl. [no, II. 

rice to the subject ; or iftlierc be any difterence arising from local 
situation, on said abctrcut question, a Northern man might write 
With a more unprejudiced and unbiassed mind, and therel'ore be 
more |;ke!y to arrive at truth. 

I suggested in my last, tiiat the piepes in recent numbers of the 
Recorder and Telegraph, and in the March and May numbers of 
the Christian Specfator, and tiie remarks upon both by a Caroli- 
nian, were my inducements for taking a part in this discussion. 

It is my design, in the present communication, to express my 
views, to greater or less extent in reference to several particulars 
embodied m those essays ; approving wheie lean, and disapprov- 
ing v/herc I must. Tiie whole subject is so copious, that 1 almost 
fear yourselves, or your readers, may not have patience to attend 
lo its thorough investigation. Yet what subject of more intense 
and vital importance to our country, (and let me add, to the world,) 
has ever appeared on your pages ! Tlie North and the South are 
ahnost ecpiall}' interested in it, and good men in both regions ought 
to rejoice that this discussion is going on ; ought not to desire its 
termination, until the subject is left on such a basis, that Christians 
»t least may ' see eye to eye,' and act hand to hand, in relation 
to it. But let this discussion be mutual, and let it be thorough — 
though, if necessary, it be protracted through every one oi your 
numbers to the close of the year. It must be earned on too, on 
both sides, in yonr's or some other Northern journal ; — lor at the 
South we dare not touch it, at least only on one side. There we 
are obliged to call what you here denominate an ex-parte council, 
to decide the question ; and how much impartiality may be ex- 
pected in a decision arrived at under these circumstances, no one 
can be at a loss to know. I deem it important, that at the very 
moment, and without any longer delay, the merits of this question 
maybe sifted to the bottom, and tiiatthe consciences of Christians 
at least, may receive a right guidance. 

Shortly after the alarming state of things in Charleston from a 
meditated servile insurrection, there was published in the South- 
ern quarter of our land, a j)amphlet, entitled something like this: 
"An Exposition oftlie views of the Baptists on the subject of Sla- 
very." It was passed at a Baptist Convention, and ordered to be 
published. I think there is strong reason to believe it was writ- 
ten by some individual of their number, probably of high standing 
amonir tliein, without any express previous appointment by the 
body ; that it was read at their convention; and from its i)laus- 
ibility, adopted wi'hout much if any discussion ; and that there- 
fore it it can hardly be considered as c«)ntaining the (/(liberate 
opinion of that, or of any other body of Christians. We know, 
that at such meetings i>f religious bodies, there is always enough 
of public business of a more approi)riate kind to occupy the whole 
time, and more than tlie time allotledto such ecclesiastical meet- 
ings, and that extraneous and unexpected business is often either 



SLAVERY. 



41 



rio. 11.] 

thrust out or else inconveniently hurried through ; I have my 
doubts, therefore, whether this important subject ever went through 
that long and impartial discussion by the Baptist Convention, 
that a topic of such immense magnitude was entitled to. I seri- 
ously doubt whether there was any discussion at all. But admit- 
ting that there was, I never have been able to sec Avhy the^ Bap- 
tists should consider themselves particularly called upon officially 
and publicly to express their opinions on this subject. I know 
not, that they, as a body, were particularly suspected by the rest 
of the community as holding sentiments adverse to slavery, or 
unsafe to the interests of a slave holding state. I know not that 
any other denomination had so arrayed themselves in a hostile 
attitude against the existing state of things at the South, as to in- 
cur the suspicions or the ^disapprobation of the community at 
large, and the Baptists felt obligated to exempt themselves from 
the odium. Twenty or thirty years ago, the Methodists had ex- 
hibited a very uncommon anti-servile spirit: but recently they 
have seemed to acquiesce in what they could not remedy, with as 
much silence and submission, as any other community of Chris- 
tian professors. But whatever were the motives of our Baptist 
brethren, and whether they came forword, called or uncalled, to 
the vindication of slavery and of the slave-trade, (for 1 agree with 
Vigorntus, tliat the slave-trade, as well as slavery, finds its de- 
fence m the principles contained in the " Exposition,") they have 
placed themselves on the popular side of the question, and may 
probably find some reward, even from the approbation in this 
particular, of men of the world. Should any individual consid- 
er the principles contained in the Exposition unscriptural, and 
the reasoning fallacious and inconclusive, still it would be difficult 
for him, if not impracticable, to print and circulate his opposite 
sentiments at the South, and by some it would be regarded as 
bringing into hazard the safety of the community. 

These are the reasons why I am gratified to find the exam- 
ination of the arguments for slavery undertaken in Northern 
prints. And for the candor evinced in general in these, prints, 
I hope that their columns will be equally accessible on this subject 
to Southern and Northern pens, to advocates, and adversaries of 
involuntary personal servitude. For my own part, Blessrs. Edi- 
tors, I must confess, as far as I can recoiled, the contents of the 
Exposition, (it must be, however, two years since I read it,) Vi- 
gornius has loosened the corner-stone and taken up the whole 
foundation of the system attempted to be supported in that pam- 
phlet. 

What I mean next, and now to do, is, to direct the attention of 
your readers to those portions of the pieces in the Recorder and 
the Spectator which I particularly approve ; and wish to have in- 
sisted on to greater extent and by farther illustration, as also to 
those parts from which I am constrained to di-ssent. And if my 



42 SLAVERV. [no. II. 

remarks on either particular can be detected as erroneous, he 
who can set me right by fair and strong argument, " erit mihi 
magnus Apollo." To the Christian Spectator I will first direct 
my attention, and whether the remarks I make should be found 
to cut Northern or Southern men ; (and I apprehend they will 
do both at ditferent times,) I wish to be considered as adopting 
for my motto 

" Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."' 

In the number for March, first paragraph of the 133 page, I 
find the writer saying, " There can be no palliation for the con- 
duct of those, who first brought the curse of slavery upon poor 
Africa, and poor America too. But the body of this generation 
are not liable to this charge. Posterity are not answerable for 
the sins of their fathers, unless they approve their deeds." Would 
to God, Messrs Editors, we could take the benefit of this saving 
clause. But I fear it will not prove such a safety-valve to us as 
the writer wishes. It unfortunately happens, that the present gen- 
eration have " approved the deeds of their fathers." There was 
a time, previous to the penal arrest by Congress in 1808, of the 
importation of slaves into the United States, when Southern ports 
were closed by the edicts of Southern legislatures against this "first 
born of hell," this infernal traffic. But that time did not endure. 
Cupidity got the better of conscience, and of regard to safety, and 
the legislature of South Carolina, (perhaps of other slave-holding 
states too,) threw the door wide open to the introduction of Afri- 
cans, and hundreds and thousands were introduced by almost every 
eastern breeze, and were eagerly bought. Legislatures of the 
present generation, therefore, have been guilty of this original sin. 
And so far as the community were concerned in patronizing and 
appointing men of such a description to legislate for them, the 
community was guilty too. And every one, who did not bear his de- 
cided testimony against it, tind every minister of Jesus, who did not 
lift up his loud and warning voice, was a large sharer in the guilt. 
When that question, Messrs. Editors, was brought before a South- 
ern legislature, the remonstrating eloquence of a Barnwell, who 
exerted his utmost efibrts to turn back the setting tide, and who 
ventured on the floor to ])redict a St. Domingo scene, spoke in 
vain. Yes, the present generation are guilty, awfully guilty, and 
let us not " cover our sins, for we shall not prosper, but confess 
and forsake them, that we may have mercy." We certainly are 
under obligation to our Northern brethren for throwing this man- 
tle of charity over our shoulders, aiul it ought to be viewed as 
making considerable amends for their smitings on other parts of 
the same subject. But the mantle itself is transparent, and we 
still appear in the nakedness of our guilt. 

The remarks contained in the second column of page 133, per- 
haps ought t(» be modiiied. As tlip case has stood until within M 



XO. lil.] SLAVERY. 



43 



or 20 years past, I admit the observations in extenso relative to 
the fact that nothing has been done by the national or state leg- 
islatures, to recognize or maintain any rights in the slave. And 
it is true to this day, that Congress has done nothing on this im- 
portant subject. Perhaps the internal regulation of the slaves, 
such as S. F. D. would have accomplished, is a matter in which 
Congress could not lawfully interfere. This however I leave for 
politicians to decide. But there has been a manifest improve- 
ment made by the legislatures of at least some of the slave-hold- 
ing states. Some rights of slaves are recognized even by law, at 
least theoretically, and public opinion I trust is recognizing them 
more and more, practically. But more on this subject hereafter. 

HiERONYMUS. 



Frorn the Recorder Sf Telegraph, Oct. 14, 1825. 

Messrs. Editors, — The contents of my former numbers are 
not much more than preliminary remarks. The merits of the 
two questions at the close of the first, have not come under reg- 
ular discussion at all. Nor shall I take them up in this commu- 
nication. Nor do I promise to pursue any particular method in 
what I now say, or may hereafter say ; I hope, however, not to 
be very' unmethodical, and defect of arrangement merely, will not 
destroy the truth (if they should be true) of my statements and rea- 
sonings ; neither would the most logical arrangement of the parts of 
the subject, of itself, prove the truth of my positions. Your readers 
will bear with me, if I am still more desultory than they could 
wish. If what I say may only be successful in bringing into the 
field of discussion abler pens than mine, or exciting to reflection 
men, who have more time upon their hands, my object will be 
completely gained, and I shall look on, an unengaged, but by no 
means an unconcerned spectator. My whole heart is in this sub- 
ject, nor can I conceive of one, at the present time more worthy 
to occupy the ablest heads and the best hearts in our country. 
The question of slavery is neither a Northern nor Southern ques- 
tion ; it is an American question. It is interesting, deeply inter- 
esting, and every day grows more and more interesting, to the 
Christian, to the politician, and to the philanthropist, — no mat- 
ter whether he live North or South of the Potomac. Viewed in 
all its bearings, there is nothing like locality about it. 

On the piece signed " A Carohnian," 1 wish now to make re- 
marks. Glad should I be to find a Carohnian, or any slave-hold- 
ing man, entering on this business with seriousness and sinceri- 
ty, with equanimity and impartiality. The mischief and the 



44 SLAVEUY. [no. IJX 

misery with us at the South is, that while all the rest of the world 
is in motion on ihe subject, — England, South America, the North- 
ern States, — we are " slumbering and sleeping," and to all who 
attempt to awaken us say, "a little more sleep, a little more 
slumber," if we do not do worse, — and to every one who addres- 
ses us upon it, "It is none of your business." I am glad "A 
Carolinian" has written, because I hope he will write again; or 
if not he, some other Carolinian, or Georgian, or Kentuckian 
slave-holdiug man. He wants discussion, Messrs Editors, and 
discussion let him have. He says (about the middle of his sec- 
ond paragraph) " Is all further discussion on the subject of slave- 
ry to be abandoned, «jtc." He himself doubtless, after penning 
such a sentence, will say No — and I say No, and so I trust will 
Vigornius, and the writers in the Christian Spectator, and the Ed- 
itors of the Recorder and Telegraph. Let us discuss the affair to 
its very core. If it have all the sides of an octagon, let us look 
at each one successively and distinctly and leisurely ; and if truth 
can be elicited, and duty ascertained, let us sj^eak, let us act, as 
the case requires. If slavery be lawful, if it be desirable, if it be 
a I)lessing and not a curse, let us cling to it and defend it and ap- 
plaud it. If it be morally wrcng and yet irremediable, let the 
South endure, and the North sympathize ; yea, let us all " bear 
one another's burdens, and so fuilil the law of Christ," But if it 
be an evil, moral, or political, or both, and a remedy is or can be 
devised, let tlic wlole American people (for " we are brethren" and 
ought " not to fall out by the way") put forth their iniglitiest and 
mo.-t perpetuated etforts till a radical cure is elfected, 

But wliat does " A Carolinian" say ? The object of his piece 
is to condemn /iVi^, the sentiments, second, tlie spirit, and third, the 
tendency of Vigornius' six communications. On the " senti- 
ments," lie says, " They are such as have been often express- 
ed by those, wlio are perfectly unacquainted with the real 
state of slavery, as it now exists in this country — who are in the 
habit of viewing every subject in the abstract — who would have 
every thing as it ought to be, or rather as they desire it ; and not 
as a wise Providence has ordered it." The chief, nay almost the 
only complaint 1 have to make on this sentence from my brother 
of the South, is its indefiiiiteness. It is higlily probable he and I 
would agree in our opinions with respect to certain statements of 
the writers he connaents on — would agree, that these writers have 
misrepresented facts as they actually exist, so far as the informa- 
tion and vwuns of observation possessed by " A Carolinian " and 
myself extend. I can say that the picture is quite too highly col- 
ored in reference to my region of country, and doubtless A Caro- 
linian may say the same in relatitui to the place in which his resi- 
dence is fixed. But on this subject I have expressed my views 
already in former numl)crs. Still 1 think Vigornius particularly a 
calm and candid writer, and with very few exceptions an able and 



,\0. Ili.] SLAVERY. 45 

conclusive reasoner. His last number, which winds up his whole 
discussion, is as admirable for the excellence of the spirit it 
breathes, as for the value and correctness of the .sentiments it ex- 
presses. No man would know from it in what part of our wide con- 
tinent he drew his breath, or wrote his essays. The feelings exhib- 
ited, and the sentiments uttered, are American and Christian. 
He views slavery not as a Southern, but as an American calamity 
— not a Southern, but a National sin — and he calls upon the na- 
tion, to relieve itself of this calamity, to repent of and forsake this 
sin ; and to a considerable extent, he tells them how. He does 
not require them to make bricks without furnishing them with 
straw. 

And even in relation to certain statements to which both " A 
Carolinian " and I would object, he may have received informa- 
tion from a source, which he thought entitled to credit ; or his re- 
marks, however inapplicable to the neighbourhood of " A Caroli- 
nian," or to my neighbourhood, may, for ought we know to the 
contrary, be strictly and literally true in relation to many other 
places. If for instance, "A Carohnian " live? in Charleston, and 
myself.in Abbeville or Pendleton, what may be untrue or exagger- 
ated in respect to either of these places, may be literally correct 
in respect to other parts of South Carolina or Georgia. Vigorni- 
us and his coadjutors are speaking of the slave-holding states ; 
and it is a very small portion of the vast extent of country com- 
prehended under that phrase, to which either my coadjutor (in 
this instance) or I have personal access, or of which either of us 
has personal knowledge. And perhaps he, certainly I, can re- 
member a time, not very far back, when probably all that these 
writers have said, was strictly true in relation to the places which 
he and I inhabit. Yes, I remember scenes from which my soul 
recoils, the recollection of which makes my flesh shiver. Would 
to God the black and bloody particulars could be blotted out of 
the book of mental history ; for literal hitory of such detestable 
business there is none. We shall never publish our shame to the 
world. 

But let us hear " A Carolinian " again. In the sentence al- 
ready quoted, he says, there are men, (the Recorder and Chris- 
tian Spectator writers included.) " who would have every thing 
as it ought to be, or rather as they desire it ; and not as a wise 
Providence has ordered it." I hardly know what to make of tlsis 
sentence, and almost fear to comment upon it, lest, through mis- 
understanding, I should (which I do not intend or wish) misrepre- 
sent it. It appears to give and take — to concede and immediate- 
ly revoke the concession. Perhaps I said too much in No. 1, 
when I represented these writers as harmonizing at all. He 
seems to have felt, that it was rather awkward business to cen- 
sure men for wishinur to have things as tbev ousht to be, an ar- 



4^ .'sLAVKRY. [no. in. 

rangenient which every good man, wherever he Wves, oiight to wish: 
and therefore qualifici?, and by so doini; neutralizes it, by adding 
"or rather as they r/t.s/rc it." Now what is it these writers c?e- 
sirc ? It is, if I understand them the o6o//7/o/« q/s/flj'cr^^, not its 
hnmidiate abolition, — a statement which, I shall presently show, 
is unfounded. But " A Carolinian " sets in opposition to this 
desire, the ordering of the Providence of God — " not as a wise 
Providence has o»-dered it," Is every thing then which men do, 
right, simply because Providence has ordered it ? Then I would 
asU him to ])Ut his finger on a single event that ever happen- 
ed, Avhich ought to he denominated a crime. What is it that the 
Providence of God does not order ? When Jesus Christ was cru- 
cified, nothing more, nothing farther took place, (if Scripture tes- 
timony maybe credited) than what " God's hand and counsel 
determined before to be done." Was the crucifixion of the Mes- 
siah therefore right 1 and was Peter wrong and cruel in his 
charge, and inconclusive in his reasoning, when he told the Jews, 
that " with wicked hands they had crucified and slain " him ? The 
long dispersions and the severe oppressions, to which the Jew- 
ish nation have been, and to which they are even now subjected, 
are " as a wise Providence has ordered it." So it was foretold 
it should be, and so in fact it has been and is. But are the na- 
tions, by whom that miserable people have been "scattered and 
peeled," justifiable and even innocent for their babarous deeds 1 
Then has our country been sadly guilty of rebellion against the 
" wise Providence " of God, for treating them like men, treating 
them so much better than they have been treated by the rest of 
the world. " A Carolinian's" argument here, by proving vastly 
too much, proves just nothing at all. Neither the decrees nor the 
Providence of God constitute any rule of duty to us. Our duty 
is to be ascertained from his commands alone. 

Having corrected " A Carolinian's" logic, I would next rectify 
his misapprehension and consequent misstatement of the repre- 
sentations of the writers he remarks on. The "■ inmudiatc aboli- 
tion of slavery" is a point Vigornius has not arrived at — nay he 
has most clearly and strongly said, that this Avork must be grad- 
ual, and so say nearly, if not (piite, all prudent men. He says in- 
deed, that the slaves in question have an immediate ?'igJif to lib- 
erty, a conclusion to which he supposed himself conducted by the 
process of reasoning through which hv. had ])assed. But at the 
same time, he seems to admit, that it is right in those who hold 
then), to refrain from manumission, nnckir circmnstances which 
render it evident it would be no blessing either to themselves or 
their emancipators, but a greater curse to both. I refer " A Car- 
ftlinian" for proof to Vigornius' (ith numlxsr. He pleads, it is true, 
f(jr .s/^f/'r/y emancipation, and innnediate preparatory steps. But 
immediate and speedy arc not synonimoiis expressions. One is 



NO. III.] SLAVERY. '*"' 

an absolute, the other a relative or comparative term. An event 
may in one view of it be regarded as very speedy, wliich in anoth- 
er might be pronounced very gradual. If slavery should be en- 
tirely abolished from the United^States in 30, 40, or even 50 years, 
many, who have looked at the difficulties of the subject and beeii 
alarmed and overwhelmed at their amount, will readily admit, 
that it would be a speedy abolition ; while every one must perceive, 
that it would be far, very far, from an immediate abolition. In a 
certain sense abolition may be immediate ; in another, speedy ; 
and in both, practicable and safe. There are not a few blacks now 
at the South, quahiied for immediate emancipation, if Legislatures 
would permit, and owners would confer it ; — many, who have 
health, and industry, and intelligence, and virtue, and character 
quite sufficient to render them useful and valuable freemen ; and 
as to the safety of the experiment, that is amply secured, in my 
opinion, by the established and flourishing colony now on tho 
coast of Africa, to which they could be at once transported. 

"A Carolinian" appears to me to have completely confounded 
the two writers he animadverts on, and to have made each ol 
them answerable for every thing said by the other. This is not 
fair. I presume there is no connivance, nor previous or under- 
stood agreement between them. The writer in the Recorder is 
much more full and thorough in his discussion, and goes more in- 
to the heart and core of his subject, and I can admit liis reason- 
ings and his statements with less qualification, than 1 can assent 
to many things in the writer in the other journal. But whatever 
exception " A Carohnian " and myself may take, and justly, to 
several observations in both of them, so far as they are brought 
to bear upon the real state of things as tliey exist in our respect- 
ive places of residence, is there not more, very much more, of a 
different character in them both, worthy of the serious attention 
of us both, and of all our neighbours in the slave-holding states ? 
And I am sorry, that amidst his vituperations of these writers, 
he could find so little to praise ; and wliat he does sceni to praise, 
he rather apologizes for, than actually commends. To a writer 
who has investigated his subjects so thoroughly, written so ably, 
and with not many exceptions, so amiably ton — who has written 
throughout so much like an American and a Christian as Yigon.i- 
us, I am sorry " A Carolinian " can find it in his heart to say no 
more than — " that these sentiments are all erroneous, 1 would ncjt 
venture to assert." Interested as I am in the subject, and desi- 
rous of understanding it, and of possessing a good coiiscience; leel- 
ing too, as though it "would be very difficult, if not impossible, to 
loosen the foundation he has laid, I should be glad if " A Carolin- 
ian," instead of coldly admitting, that the sentiments are not all 
erroneous, v/ould undertake to prove, that even a trntk part oj 



48 feLAVtUSc-. [no. IV. 

them are so ; and lor lliis purpose, I trust, Messrs. Editors, you 
•vviii give him, or any other man that will undertake it, an abun- 
dance of column-room. Hiekonymus. 



From the Recorder <^- Telegraph, October 21, 1825. 
Messrs. Editors, — Your paper of the '^3d Sept. has had time 
to reach me, and I am not a little gratified to find a writer, who 
!<igns himself " Philo," and who seems to have taken up his pen 
jn consequence of the stricture of " A Carolinian," inviting dis- 
cussion from the South, and calling upon us who live in the at- 
mosphere of slavery, to say what ought to be done, and to pro- 
pose what can be done. " I wish," says he, " most earnestly to 
draw from him ("A Carohnian") a statement of the feelings and 
expectations of our Southern brethren respecting the continuing 
or removing of slavery." And he closes his piece by saying, 
♦' we therefore look to a discussion of its (viz. the subject of sla- 
very) principles and influence, as the means of developing truth, 
and elfecting this change" viz. a change in public opinion. While 
I hope " A Carolinian" will pay attention to the summons of Phi- 
lo, and debate the matter in fjuestion fairly and fully, I trust that 
as the call of the latter on us is a general one, what I may have 
to say in this and in ensuing numbers, should there be any more, 
w^ill be regarded by him as complying with his wishes. For my 
own part I have already, in former communications, cheerfully 
conceded to him what he seems to claim in the following sen- 
tence, " Nor are we," viz. we of the North, " to be deterred from 
our purpose, by being told that we are ignorant of the whole sub- 
ject. Of many of the details of slavery we doubtless are, and ev- 
er desire to be ignorant ; but of its general features and principles 
and influence, we claim to have some knowledge, and that too 
from authentic sources. Nor shoukl we find it necessary to con- 
fine ourselves to minute instances of rare outrage and cruelty, — 
but wouhl look only to evils, Avhich are literally co-extensive with 
the slave territory, or are general throughout it." No one sure^ 
ly can reasonably object to the ground here assumed. It is com- 
mon ground, and (pialified by no locality whatever. 

My present remarks will take their shape and direction chiefly, 
if not entirely, liom the queries, sugg(!.stions, and observations of 
" Philo." This writer does not undertake to justify every thing, 
that Vigoniius has saiil; nor to ap|)rove every statement, which S. 
V. D. has made. Yet, taken as a ir/io/c, he assumes the correct- 
ness of the principles and the conclusiveness of tiie reasonings of 
both these individuals. And what can be more fair than the calj 



NO. IT.] SLAVERY. 49 

lie makes, when, includinsf tliose who have preceded liim in tLe 
discussion of the Kubject with hiinsell', he sny.s, " If we have en- 
tered upon this matter witha wrong spirit, let them," (viz. Soulh- 
erii brethren) " shoio wherein it is so. If we have proposed wrong 
measures or made erroneous statements, let them show hovj and 
where.'' Of this apparently candid and sincere invitation to in- 
vestigate the subject, I shall freely avail myself. 

lie expresses a "wish most earnestly to draw from him (" A 
Carolinian,") a statement of the feelinj^s and wishes of our South- 
ern brethren respecting the continuing or iemoving of slavery." 
If a Carolinian is possessed of sufficiently accurate and extensive 
information to meet this wish, it is hoped he will gratify it. For 
my own part, though not able to say what proportion would pre- 
fer the latter of the proposed alternatives, or what would be tlie 
precise relative strength of the two parties, I hesitate not to as- 
sert, that tnant/, and I hope very many, would rejoice in the re- 
moval of slavery, when it can be accomplished, as one of the 
greatest temporal, and in some points of view, spiritual blessings, 
which a kind Providence could confer upon us. And I am not 
without hope, that if the present discussion of the subject is con- 
tinued by good men with a proper spirit, the statement I have 
ventured to make will be more and more verilied. 

" Philo," I find, is just as decided against iimnediate emancipa- 
tion, as any Southern man can be, and in this he is far from be- 
ing alone; even as a Northern writer. "A Carolinian," as I have 
already shown, has most sadly mistaken Vigornius, in represent- 
ing him as the advocate of immediate emancipation ; nor do i 
believe he will find such on advocate in any Northern writer on 
the subject, if he would read with calmness and attention. 

" Philo," very properly wishes the slaves to be instructed, and 
thus prepared and cjualified to enjoy freedom. He wishes his 
Southern brethren to " engage in a series of prospective measures, 
which shall tend to fit the negro to be free." So far as individu- 
als are concerned, I believe in some degree (far too small to be 
sure) not a few owners of slaves are giving them, or putting tJiem 
in a way of obtaining, much more religious instruction, than tltey 
formerly had access to — a number are teaching them to read at 
home — a number send them to Sabbath Schools, for this purpose 
in part,— and I cannot but believe that, notwithstanding the ini- 
quitous legislation, which has taken i)lace in some States, the 
number of persons is increasing, who feel that on this subject they 
"ought to obey God rather than man;" and that, in more than 
one place, the following statement will soon be found true, if iu 
more than one place it is not true already ; — " some pious fe- 
males were told, that, if they continued teaching the blacks in Sab- 
bath Schools, they would subject themselves to the penalty of the 
law, which Avas a fine and whipping on the bare back. They 



OW SLAVERY'. [no. IV. 

modestly replied, wc must go on ; and will pay tlic fine, and if any 
person can be i'oiind to do the whipping, we will endure it." i 
do not mean to say, that the specific motive m teaclilngthe bkvcks 
to read is their emancipation. The motive is, to discharge to- 
wards them an important Christian duty, to give them access to 
the holy volume, and to improve their character, wliatever tlieir 
condition is to be; whether they remain slaves, or become tree. 

Another fact of interest, whicii I have lately met with as exist- 
ing in a slave-holding State, is the following, — which shows, that 
not only insulated individuals, but associations are aiming at the 
ultimate emancipation of the children of bondage. " The Anti- 
Slavery Society of Maryland, have determined to inquire out, and 
promote the election of candidates to the Legislature, who will 
pass a law for the gradual extinguishment of slavery in that State." 
The recent emancipations also, with a view to the removal of the 
emancipated to Hayti or to the colony at Mesurado in Africa, 
give similar indications of the ])rogress of public sentiment and 
feeling. The noble example of iMinge, who liberated and provi- 
ded otherwise for 88, and several other cases of less notoriety, 
are important specimens of a spirit and practice which must in- 
crease. 

But when " Philo" goes on to ask his Southern brethren "to 
make laws to meliorate the condition of the slave — to encourage 
enterprise — to diffuse knowledge — to instil moral jninciple — to 
facilitate self-emancipation," if we are to judge of future from 
j)ast feelings and acts of slave-holding legislatures, Hear the case 
is nearly a hopeless one. When I consider the fate of a propo- 
gition, made not long since by the legislature of Ohio to some of 
our Southern legislatures, a proposition couched, if 1 mistake not, 
in very modest and respectlul terms, and containing nothing of- 
fensive in matter or manner — when 1 recollect further the spirit, 
with which a proposal equally reasonable and unexceptionable, 
made l»y i\Ir. Ki.xu in the Senate of the United States, was view- 
ed by some members from slave-holding States, and the disposal 
that was made of it at that session at least, I confess 1 ain far 
from being sanguine in my exj)ectations i'roiii legislating men, un- 
less their constituents speak iii language sometiiing hke that of 
the Anti-Slavery Society in Maryland, already ii'.entioned in this 
communication. And my fear is, that the slave-lushlmg commu- 
nity at large are too ae(]uiescent in the deeds of their legislatures 
to bring about any xery inqjortant change at present, unless they 
are brought to identiiy more their own guilt with the guilt of leg- 
islators t)f their own appointment; and to feel more, that if an ini- 
quitous course is pursued, or a correct course rejected by "the 
powers that be," J'rovideuce, in the punislnnents it sends, will 
identify the constituents with the constituted. 1 wish tlie former 
would lay to heart as a practical nuixnn of great imjiortance on 



NO. IV.] SLAVERY. 



51 



lis subject, the words of Horace, " Delirant reges, plcctnntnr^ 
xhivi." For the present, I apprehend all the appeals of" Philo" 



thi 

Achivi.'''' For the present, I appi 

and his co-adjutors must be made to the people; if peradventnre, 
they may so change the materials of which their legislatures are 
composed, as to bring about the result desired. Southern legis- 
latures latterly, some of them at least, instead of making progress 
in this business, have been absolutely undoing the deeds of for- 
mer days. Former!)/, emancipation was unrestrained-r-the mas- 
ter was left at hberty to manumit, no other security being lequi- 
red of him, than what would go to establisli the physical and 
moral competency of the manumitted individual, to maintain 
himself. Notv, from an apprehension of danger from the increase 
of free colored persons, an express act of the legislature is requir- 
ed in each case. 

While on this subject, permit me to bring to the view of your 
readers, for their deliberate consideration, the following plan for 
the emancipation of slaves, from Mr. Schoolcrafts' work entitled 
" Travels in the valley of the Mississippi." 

A New Plan for the Emancipation of Slaves. 
" We lay it down as a principle, that whatever a slave earns 
above the full cost of his maintenance, is procured by the alter- 
nate eflect of stripes and rewards, operating through a syr^tcm of 
judicious tasks. And we think it further capable of demonstra- 
tion, that more labour is to be gained by the latter method tiuin 
by the former. The excitement of a spirit of industry, by allow- 
ing the blacks a portion of time to themselves, by giving them 
work to perform, if they choose, and paying them for it the mo- 
ment it is finished, is no less profitable to the master than to the 
slave. It also insures the punctual ])erformance of their daily 
tasks, as *hey do not begin to work for themselvesuntil, they have 
finished what their duty requires to their master. To j)erfect, 
then, this system of tasks and rewards, which, in some degree, is 
now in full operation on every well conducted plantation in Amer- 
ica ; — to render the former as little onerous to the slave as may 
be, and to make the latter a bare equivalent for the work per- 
formed ; and to fund the avails of this extra labour in such a man- 
net, as to make it ap])licable to the purchase of the slave's free- 
dom, is, as we think, the important desideratum in the emancipa- 
tion of the blacks. We will illustrate our views by the following- 
proposition : Every profitable slave, under the strong excitement 
of a money reward, will complete his task one, two, three, or four 
hours before the usual time of quitting the field or the work-shop. 
Let him receive a proper compensation for his extra work. ^ But 
lest he should make an improper use of the money, or spend it in 
riotous or luxurious living, let every planter establish a Saving 
Institution, Plantation Bank or Depository, for the express use 



52 SLAVERY. ' [no. IV. 

of his slaves, in whicli two-thirds of the avails of all extra labour 
shall be deposited by the slaves at proper times ; and let it be op- 
tional with him to fund the remaijiing third, or to receive it in 
checks on a j)lantation store, — which checks shall have no cur- 
rency off the limits of the estate. In this Avay, moi(^ work will 
be done than it is possible in the ordinary mode to procure, and 
the produce of the plantation, the work-shop, or the mine, will be 
ealK'.nced in ratio corresponding to the whole annual amount 
paid in rewards. And thus the proprietor, while he enjoys the 
iioble pleasure of promoting the happiness and emancipation of 
his bondmen, has, at the same time, the additional satisiaction of 
knowing that he is pursuing the best means for improving his 
own fortune. 

" We will suppose such a slave as we have been considering, 
to be worth, in the present depressed state of commerce, six hun- 
dred dollars. When his earnings, deposited in Bank, amount to 
one hundred dollars, he shall have the whole of jHondaij free 
from task, to work entirely for himself. He then has two days 
in the week, including the Sabbath, at his own disposal ; — this 
will enable him more rapidly to acquire, by voluntary labour the 
second hundred dollars, with which he purchases Tuesday. He 
has now three days, two of which arc working days, at his own 
command, and with these two days he purchases Wednesday, 
and so on, in a progressive ratio, until the whole six days are his 
own, and he is free ! He will enter society with habits of indus- 
try and temperance, which are calculated to render him a valua- 
ble citizen; and we will venture to assert, that any slave, who is 
not possessed of sufficient mental energy and llrmness to submit 
to tins i)reparatory discipline, cannot be qualified for, and is 
scarcely entitled to the enjoyment of civil liberty." 

If the foregoing plan appear judicious and feasible, (it is ccj-- 
tainly worth an experiment,) and the only objection to it be, the 
danger of such self-bought slave remaining in the country (though 
in this case it would seem as if the claim on his gratitude would 
make him a friend and not a foe,) let the previous stipulated con- 
dition be, as soon as he is emancipated, he shall remove to Hay- 
ti, or to the American Colony on the coast of Africa, where he 
cannot do otherwise than become in every point of view a valua- 
ble acquisition. 

In some jiart of l»ryon Edwards' work on the West Indies, 
which i read a i'liw years ago, if 1 mistake not he states, that in 
one of those Islands, 1 now forget which, a planter is obliged by 
law to permit every slave to purchase his own freedom, and that 
at a reasonable rate ; who, by his industry in extra hours and by 
his economy, has uiatle or saved a sufficient sum for this pur- 
pose. Would not some regulation of this kind in every slave- 
holding community in the United States, be admirably calculated 



I\0. IV.] SLAVERY. 



53 



to do good 1 Would it not, among other good purposes, serve to 
ascertain who among the slaves would deserve freedom, and be 
likely to make a good use of it 1 

" Philo" urges " that plans be formed, and measures of opera- 
tion adopted without delay'''' — and so says Scripture and con- 
science, and the present state of the world. So say our gi-owing 
dangers ; so says the independence of Hayti, the progress and the 
prospects of the American as well as English Colony in Africa— 
so say late transactions in South America,* — so says Bolivar,t — 
so says the continuance of that horrible traffic, the slave-trade, 
which seems determined not to die but with the death of slavery 
itself, — so say the strong and determined measures taken in the 
British Parliament and by the British nation ; so, in one word, 
says the whole present aspect of the Providence of God. With 
one voice they warn against any farther delay, and call to imme- 
diate effort in some way or other. 

" Philo," in vindicating himself and his Northern friends from 
the charge of unwarrantable interference, so strongly and so fre- 
quently urged against them by their Southern brethren, says, "it 
is a subject in which we feel deeply, and have a right so to feel." 
Yes, they have right, and who dare deny it to them — they have a 
right to feel, as Americans, the obviously glaring contradiction 
between the fact of perpetuated, interminable slavery, and the 
very first principles contained in the nation's " Declaration of In- 
dependence," which is read publicly every year throughout our 
land. They have a right to feel, as parents, whose children may 
settle, for aught they know to the contrary, far away in some 
slave-holding State. They have a right to feel, on a variety of 
other accounts, which we have not now time to detail, but which 
must be obvious to every candid and reflecting mind. And he 
disavows for himself and those concerned with him, all disposi- 
tion to take the lead in this business. They wish to fall in as 
secondaries and subordinates : they " wish most heartily that their 
Southern brethren would go forward,'" and let them take "their 
proper place of subsidiaries in the great national work, and would 
gladly avail themselves of the advice of those, who, from their 
circumstances and experience, are so well able to give it." 

And now, it remains for " a Carolinian" to disentangle him 
from his embarrassments, when he assigns as his reason for not 
" defending any of the leading positions taken by either of the 
writers on whom "a Carolinian" has remarked, that "their 
reasoning has not, as yet, been shown to be fallacious," that 

^ The new republics, if I mistake not, have abolished, or at least taken de- 
termined measures to abolish slavery, — the young republic of Colombia, in 
particular. 

\ Bolivar is stated to have emancipated his own slaves, to the number, if J. 
mistake not, of several hundred. Cf^ee Christian Spectator Vol. 5. p. 430.) 
ft 



54 SLAVERY. fNO. V. 

"there is nothing but assertion," " tliat it would he diflicult to 
say where to begin or \i hat method to take to illustrate them," 
(the propositions of \'igornius and S. F. D.) " until we know in 
what way they aviII he attacked." Either the "Carolinian" or 
some other is bound to answer the following yery simple and 
reasonable questtons ; " Do they (the people of the South) wish 
to h.ave any thing done towards the abolition of slavery !" " Do 
they wish to have it done as speedily as possibie ? " Do they be- 
lieve that any thing can be done ?" " We desire lo leant from 
our Southern brethren themselves, what tlieir creed on the slave 
system is." All the questions proposed, I and those who think 
with me, (I trust the number is not small, and that it will contin- 
ually increase, the moie the subject is discussed) are prepared at 
once to answer in the affirmative. Our creed on the subject of 
slavery has been in part developed in this and preceding commu- 
nications, and will be still farther disclosed in future numbers. 

HiERONYMUS. 



S 1, ^ If E R T. ISo. V. 

From the Recorder 4' Telegraph, October 23, IS26. 
Messrs. Editors, — My last communication grew out of" Plu- 
lo's" piece, and was chiefly occupied with matters suggested by 
his queries, reriiarks, &c. My intention at present is, to take a 
brief review of tl'.e immbers of " Vigornius," to approve what de- 
serves approbation, to modifyiug what may seem to need qualifi- 
cation, to question positions, that may not appear well establish- 
ed, to censure or at least to disapprove statements, that may be 
erroneous, to solicit further light on topics, tiiat may have been 
only touched and but imperfectly handled ; and thus to con- 
tinue and protract the discussion, until the merits of the contro- 
versy are thoroughly sifted, and truth and duty on every impor- 
tant point at issue clearly ascertained. 

In No. 1 "Vigornius" has "exhibited a rapid outline of the 
oiigin and jirogress of slavery," In this outline he has shown, 
that the malerials out of which slavery was fabricated, were " cap- 
tives taken in war," and " children sold by tlieir j)a rents " for 
that purpose. He finds the early and general prevalence of slav- 
ery, in the facts of the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites, the ser- 
vitude of the Israelites in Egypt, and the system of slave-holding 
among the Jews themselves in Palestine. By a nnitual general 
understanding among ancient nations, it was regarded lawful to 
make slaves of prisoners of war, as the modern mode of an ex- 
change of prisoners was unknown, lie has also shown us, that 



NO. v.] SLAVERY. 5*> 

slavery was even then, when the principles of modern liberty were 
so little understood, " a bitter draught," — so bitter, that those in 
bondage frequently broke their chains on the heads of their op- 
pressors. He finds the Romans to have been the most gentle 
and generous slave-owners among the ancient pagans. Descen- 
ding to a later period, he finds the Portuguese to be " the first 
among the people of Europe," who laid the foundation of that 
detestable system, which (hear, O Heavens, and be astonished, O 
earth !) progressed even Avith the progress of the reformation, and 
in which' C/iristian Europe has taken so signal and scandalous 
a part. 

In looking at even this " rapid outline," which " Vigornius '' 
has given us, " of the rise and progress of slavery," how much is 
there to make the faces of European and American Christians 
put on their deepest blush ! Is it true, that " the hope of manumis- 
sion was never denied (even) to Roman slaves ?" Where shall 
Carolinians, and Virginians, and Georgians, &:c. &c. appear, 
when it is stated as a solemn fact, that no certain /io/x* of manu- 
mission was ever held out to those whom they hold in bondage ? 
The caprice, the generosity, the conscience, or the gratitude of a 
master, has sometimes induced him to liberate his slave : but it 
was left entirely to his pleasure Avhether and when to liberate. 
No legislature has even been so much the friend of the Southern 
slave, as to secure his emancipation, without the consent of his 
owner, however much he may have deserved this distinction. 
Though by his honesty and integrity, he may have merited his 
liberty, and by his industry secured enough to purchase it, he has 
not in any instance been able to obtain it without the Jiat of his 
master. The Roman slaves, says "Vigornius " '-were educated 
in the liberal arts ;" " slaves were the instructors of the Roman 
youth." V^ho has ever " heard even by the hearing of the ear," 
— much more, who has ever seen, — such privileges allowed to 
American slaves ? Alas! there is a tremendous itching, even 
now, among too many, to prevent their even learning to read. 
AVhere is the Southern slave to whose lot it has ever beeij permit- 
ted to fall, "to enlighten and adorn some of the proudest ages 
of classical literature ?" When certain great men at the South 
exclaimed,* that Athens, and Sparta, and Rome had slaves, and 

* The London Cliristian Obsevcr, jn commenting on tliis langnase ofn Geor- 
gia Committee, says, " tliat is, wo like tliem will be heatlions and not Ciirist- 
ians : professed imitators oftlirec States, the first of which was one of tl;e most 
profligately licentious — the second, the, most barbarous, brutal, and inhuman 
— the third, the most unjust, tyrannical, and sanguhiary, of uli whose names 
and atrocities have blotted the page of history." 

(Christian Observer, for July lt:'2~).) 

A'otc hij the Editors. Comparing the above from the Christian Observer 
with the language of Vigornius relative to the privileges of Roman Slaves — 
buth of which %ve believe to be tolerublv correct — it will be jiccossary to recol i 



•55 !sa.AVERV. [no. V, 

added " we will have them," would it not he well for them to in- 
quire, whether their slaves are not in a tenfold degree more de- 
graded, than the slaves of those j^ a g an nations were. "O shame, 
where is thy blush ?" 

It appears from " Vigornius' " statements, that there was no 
small " kicking against the pricks" in the consciences of some of 
those European monarchs, who commenced and carried on this 
infernal traffic between Africa and our Western continent ; and 
Louis Xlllth was prevented from emancipating "all slaves in his 
dominions by the humane assurance, that the introduction of slaves 
into his colonies was the readiest way of converting tlicm to Chris- 
tianity.^^ Well would it have been for our fathers, who brought 
this curse upon us, and for ourselves who have retained it, could 
they and we — could they or we — say, that to christianize them 
was our leading motive, or that it Mas our motive at all. We 
have reason indeed to be very thankful, that God has in many 
instances " made the wrath," and cruelty, and avarice of man " to 
praise him," and that thousands of slaves have been brought " in- 
to the glorious liberty of the children of God." But this has been 
in many instances rather in spite of us, — in many more, indepen- 
dently of us; — than in answer to our prayers, in remuneration of 
our eftbrts, and in concurrence with our own plans. Some of 
them have happened to live in tlie neighbourhood of a Christian 
church, and thus had opportunity to hear "the words of eternal 
life." But when or where was the gospel ever expressly and de- 
signedly carried to them ? Legislatures have laid taxes upon 
owners, according to the number of their slaves ; but it was for 
civil, political, commercial purposes ; never, no never, that the 
blessings of the gospel might be brought to their cabins. Never, no 
never, even have Christian owners acted together and in a body, for 
the spiritual good of their slaves. Individuals, as such, have in 
many instances, done much, and would have done more, had not 
the sinful " fear of man brought a snare" upon them ; — had they 
not been deterred by the frowns of their ungodly neighbours. I 
know upon creditable authority, of a good man, whose anxieties 
to the day oi' his death, were deep and strong on this subject, 
who was in the habit of assend)ling his slaves every Sabbath, who 
was desirous to have the gospel preached to them, who said, he 
would give .':<.5()0 a year (if I mistake not) to have regular preach- 
ing performed among them ; but who, with all this conviction, 
and all this desire, did nothing, merely because the measure was 
excessively unpopular among his neighbours. I have heard, up- 
on testimony entitled to e(]ual credit, that mIicu tickets of per- 
mission have been given by a pious man to his own slaves to at- 
tend the instructions of an excellent minister at his own house, 

lect the ptdicy of tlic Romans towards tliosc wlioin they clioseto call their cn- 
oniics. coinparrd with tlii'ir |toiiiy towards tho siiiK' jii opie wlicii sutliciontlv 
h!mihli;(l to snU:^ly llair pridf. 



NO. v.] sy^AVERV. 57 

as soon as those slaves liave been found off their Master's prem- 
ises, tlieir tickets, wliich should have been their protection, have 
been taken from them, and they have been scourged in sight of 
the minister and in his presence. These indeed are tales (in 
some respects) of other times. Yet the day is not very remote, 
when these thmgs were done, nay the former fact is quite recent. 
Yes, Messrs. Editors, the gospel has proved " the wisdom and 
power of God to salvation " to a multitude of slaves : but no thanks 
for it are due to many of us, who nsake this plea in justification 
of slavery. It has been a merely incidental affair. And for one 
(taking the slave-region generally) that enjoys the privileges of the 
sanctuary, I think 1 am not mistaken, when I say that there are 
20 or 30, perhaps more, who, if they were in the very heart of 
Africa, would enjoy as much evangelical light as now &lunes up- 
on them. 

" Vig'ornius" has touched upon another thought, which is of im- 
portance in discussing the justifiableness of slavery. Some of «*■ 
are in the habit of saying, that, in bringing Afripans to this coun- 
try, and dooming them to perpetual servitude, we only continue 
them in a condition, in which they were found at home ; for they 
were slaves there. But how came they to be slaves at home 1 — 
they were prisoners of war. And " whence came wars and fight- 
ing? among" them 1 Even from European and American " lusts, 
that warred in their members ;" that furnished the main-spring 
and motive of African broils. The cupidity and the avarice of 
Christian nations, kindled the flames that incinerated the villages 
of Africa ; sharpened the sword, that drank the blood of her sons, 
and forged the chains, that qualified them for transportation west- 
ward. " When it became difficult to meet the demand for slaves, 
they (viz. the Portuguese, O that they had stood alone !) were guil- 
ty of the most execrable expedients, to induce the peaceful tribes to 
make war upon each other, and sell the captives." And is not 
this the shameful and horrible fact still, in relation to the slave 
trade. " I pause for a reply." I have done for the present with 
" Vigornius' " 1st number. 

He commences his 2d, by saying, that "no efforts have yet 
been able to effect a suppression of the African slave-trade. So 
long as a demand for slaves exists, this odious commerce in hu- 
man flesh will continue, in defiance of law, danger, and death." I 
was inclined once to draw a broader line of distinction between 
the slave-trade and slavery, than subsequent deeper and more 
' mature reflection on the subject seems to me to justify. There 
are many, who will raise a loud and long out-cry against the 
slave-trade, who are considerably passive under the existence and 
pressure of slavery, and who, if they could be brought to see much 
of an intimate connexion between the two, or to think that they 
?tand and fall together, would be anxious to devise ways and 



5S StAVERY. [kO. V. 

means to remedy, and in due time remove existing evils, as well 
prevent their continuaiice and their s^tread. It appears, that both 
the legislature and people of Great ihitain have been recently 
roused to a consideration of this subject. They have seemed to 
see the futility of all attempts to abolish the slave-trade, Avhile 
slavery itself exists. They perceive that they have made little or 
no progress, either in arresting the detestable tralHc, or in meli- 
orating the miseries of slavery in their West India Islands ; and 
they have now taken hold of the subject with a vigor that seems 
to predict the speedy dowufall of both. In a very energetic 
pamphlet, supposed to be written by a lady in England, it is said, 
that " when the (slave) trade was abolished by the British legis- 
lature, it was too readily concluded, that the abolition of slavery 
in the British Dominions, would have been an inevitabie conse- 
quence." vSlie, it is to be observed, contends for " immediate, 
not gradual abolition." (This is the title of the pamphlet) 
''The slave-holder knew very well, that his prey would be secure, 
so long as the abolitionists could be cajoled into a demand for 
gradual, iiistend of imvied) ate abolition. He knew very well that 
the contemplation of a^rortfwflZ emancipation, would beget a grad- 
ual indifference to cmuncipation itself. He knew very w&l!, that 
oven the wise and the good, may, by habit and familiarity, be 
lirought to endure and tolerate almost any thing." "The ame- 
liorating measures recommended by Parliament," she adds, " to 
the colonial legislatures, are neglected and spurned." The argu- 
ments she employs for immediate, instead of remote or gradual 
abolition, (of their correctness I may speak in some future num- 
ber) appear to me to aj)ply to the extirpation of slavery, either 
sooner or later, as the most efficient, perhaps the only deadly 
stroke to the slave-trade. We have reason to fear, this trade, to 
some considerable extent, will exist and thrive while slavery ex- 
ists, unless the whole Western coast of Africa can be lined with 
cruisers to suppress it, and unless all nations unite in its suppres- 
sion. One is alarmed, to see how little has yet been done ; it can 
scarcely be said to be checked. As far as slavery is connected 
with the slave-trade, those who hold the latter in deep abhor- 
rence, should do every thing practicable to shake off the former. 
" Vigornius" in his '^nd number, discusses at some length, the 
pleas in vindication of slavery, professed to be founded on, or 
drawn from the Scriptures. And 1 think Avith him, that the very 
pivot, upon which this whole ((uestion turns, is that celebrated 
law of love, that "golden rule," to " do unto others as you would 
be done by." It is trm;, that Paul in his precepts to master and 
slave, has recognised the fact, that slavery existed ; has recog- 
nised and has enjoined tlie mutual duties of the correspiuideut re- 
lations. But a variety of circumstances, ap|)ertaining to the age 
and country in M'hich I*aul and hi? cotemporaries lived, and the 



iV6. v.] SLAVERY. 09 

inconceivably different circumstances of our age and nation, are 
to be taken into consideration, in drawing conclusions respecting 
our rights and duties. We must know how men in those days 
came to be slaves, how they were treated in tjietr servitude, what 
were their privileges, and what their deprivations, how far slave- 
ry was a national and civil concern ; what would have been the ef- 
fect, when Paganism was on the throne, to have introduced or 
attempted material alterations in the relations of human life — tlu; 
humble state of the Christian church, and its entire disseverance 
from all the concerns of government. Unless, with all this end- 
less variety of circmnstances in mind, we bring the question of 
slavery to the test of the golden rule above introduced, I fear nii 
shall find our argument work too far, cover too much ground, en- 
tirely condemn some things which we, as Americans, have done, 
and in having done which, we glory. How else shall we justify 
any Christian, who bore arms in the revolutionary war ? How jus- 
tify those ministers, who carried the concerns of the Revolution 
into their sermons and prayers ? Was Paul any more cxjilicit iu 
the precepts he gave to servants, than in the injunctions he laid 
on subjects ? Did not he who said, " Servants be obedient to them, 
that are your masters according to the flesh," say also, " let ev- 
ery soul be subject utito the higher powers— the })owers that be 
are ordained of God ?" How can any Christian viiulicate slavery 
by the word of God, and not condeuin, upon the same principles 
and by the same reasoning, the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence? Were not the king and parliament of Great Britain 
" the higher powers," " ordained of God," to which the Christian 
colonies in America were commanded to "be in subjection ?" 
By whatever argument conscientious revolutionists ritl themselves 
of these precepts, slaves themselves and the advocates of eman- 
cipation can relieve themselves from censure in the desire of free- 
dom. And more especially is this the case, if tt he found (ui ex- 
amination, that slaves are more oppressed, more deprived of their 
rights, especially their religious priviliges, mom cut oil" from llie 
means of serving and obeying God, than the Christian subjects of 
Great Britain were, when they threw off the yoke. Until these 
cases are shown by " a Carolinian" or some other writer, (an en- 
terprize I have not yet seen undertaken) to be radically dissimi- 
lar, I agree with " Vigornius," that slavery, as it exists in the 
United States, is unlawful and unscriptural — that " if the slave 
may be made iree,'''' he ought to " choose it rather ;" and tliat it 
is our duty, and our interest, to liberate them, as soon as it can 
be done with safety to ourselves and with benefit to them — as 
soon as the voice of Providence says, "this is the way, walk in 
it." 

Bringing then this subject to the test of the golden rule, I ask, 
whether in this thing, we are " doing as we would be done by." 



60 SLAVERY. ; [no. VI. 

After all that can be said, and said with truth, (as I know in ma- 
ny instances is the case,) about their comfortable provision, their 
moderate labour, their freedom from anxieties and cares, that cor- 
rode their masters' hearts — their affection to tiieir owners, and 
their owners' tender and paternal regard to them — their religious 
pi'iviliges ; — in the cases in which these are most extensively allow- 
ed, would we be willing to be enslaved ourselves, provided we could 
enjoy, in our servitude, all these blessings 1 If we should propose to 
the poorest white member of the community, who scarcely knows 
after one meal, where to look for the next, that if he will be our 
slave, we will supply him with all these comforts, what Avould be 
tiie answer in each case 1 Would it not be a decided No. I have 
yet to learn whence the right is derived of making a man 
happy, without his consent and against his Avill. I know not, 
that I can add any thing very material more to the reasonings, 
the remarks, and the conclusions of your correspondent on this 
subject, in his second number ; and shall therefore, instead of en- 
larging farther on this topic, recommend to "a Carolinian" and 
all who are like minded with him, an attentive perusal, or if he 
or they have read it already, an attentive reperusal of said 2nd 
number. If they can dislodge " Vigornius" from his position, I 
hope they will do so ; if not, that they will yield to their honest 
convictions, and unite for the gradual, and (fat all practicable, 
the immediate abolition of slavery, with Hieronymus. 

BIiik^£3IlT. Mo. VI. 

From the Recorder &^ Telegraph, Kov. 4, 1825. 

Messrs. Editors, — I have in former communications acknowl- 
edged the desultory character of my remarks. Nor have I prom- 
ised, nor do I now engage, to pursue any prescribed course. The 
interference of my constant and pressing avocations, and occa- 
sional seasons of absence from home, compel ine to take up my 
pen in such fragments of time, as I can now and then redeem 
irom other claims u))on it. The ])articular topics, descanted on 
in each number, will in a great measure grow out of circumstan- 
ces, that may arise, to throw the current of my thoughts into one 
channel rather than another. 

In my last I took up the pieces of " Vigornius," intending to 
remark in succession on such iinjiortant particulars in each of 
them, as might seem to re([uire animadversion, either in the way 
of approval or disaj)|)robation. IJelorc 1 renew attention to those 
numbers, I have deemed it of some consequence to notice another 
com.nunication in the Christian Spectator, which has fallen in my 
way, since my own No. 5 was written, and which appears to pre- 



NO. VI.] SLAVERYi 61 

sent the subject under discussion in a light well worthy the at- 
tention of both your Northern and Southern readers : — of the for- 
mer, that they may handle this topic in a way least calculated t(» 
excite the prejudices and irritate the feeUngs of the Soutliern 
islave-holder ; and of the latter, that they may admit it possible at 
least, that Northern advocates of emancipation are conscientious 
in their opposition to the slave-holding system, and are willing to 
do all they consistently can, to conciliate the feelings of those 
against whose temporal interests they may appear to be arrayed. 

It gives me satisfaction to be able to exprets the opinion, that 
Northern men are looking at slavery, and writing respecting it, 
with other views and other feelings, than those which character- 
ized their discussions on this subject a tew years ago. While 
they are as decided as ever in their opposition to slavery, and de- 
nounce it with as much vehemence as ever, as equally at war 
with the benevolent precepts of our holy religion, and the funda- 
mental principles of our free Republic, they ajipear disposed to 
make greater allowances than formerly, for the feelings, and hab- 
its, and expressions of Southern men, who have from childhood 
breathed a different atmosphere from themselves. They appear 
to view slavery, as it exists in our country, more in the iiglit of 
an American, than a Southern sin and misery. They call as 
loudly on the " North to give up," as on " the South to keep not 
back." 

The article in the Christian Spectator, to v/hich I have now a 
more special reference, is in the August number of the present 
year, (1825.) It is entitled, " Thouglits on the discussion of 
Slavery." While the writer seems to take it for granted, that 
involuntary slavery, without any crime in him who is the subject 
bf it, to justify his being held in bondage, is wrong ; he admits 
that those who from their birth have been accustomed to see 
slaves around them, and to hold them, and to hear no discussion 
on the subject, and no condemnation of it, must from habit and 
from inattention, have a much feebler impression of its guilt, than 
those who have never breathed any other air, than the atmos- 
phere of liberty. He conceives " that a point is presented, where 
the slave-holder might be addressed without creating a sense t)f 
intentional injury." " We should go back one step," says he, 
"and labour to make him entertain the same views and feelings 
in regard to the natural i-ights of the slave, that we do." " For 
this purpose," he goes on, " let him be addressed on the princi- 
ple of slavery, rather than on its effects and the particular laws 
for governing the slaves. Let the friends of Africa discuss this 
subject ably and fully at the South, in every way calculated to 
influence public opinion, so that if possible, this may assume as 
decided a tone there in opposition to the principle of slavery, as 
it does here. Let men go among the planters with the spirit and 
9 



[no. VI. 

personal animosity or ^^^^'^«^^f J^oble Vecomenclati()n, and ll.e 

* Tins, Messrs. Editors, \%^ \f."^^^ 

appearance of It in tlus quotation myoinpape^^^ ^^^^^^^ 

iVeleive, considerably ^^ ^^^^^^^ :^ ^^,^ tlie South," to 
will, I trust, stimulate ' 'f^^^^^^^^V'tyV which it is to be hoped, 
perforin a l<>"f "j^S^ected du ,-^^^^^^^^^ than by de- 

has been overlooked latlicr ^'^ ""-",, important in itselt, I 
sion. A discussion ot this natuie l^^^^^" / /^„, ^Uc journ- 
apprehend could hardly be ---r-^ ^ "^^^^^^^^^^ sufficient- 

as at the South. No Editor F^bably' ^^ V^^- ^„ ^^^ propriety 

ly mdependent, whatever ^^-.S^'^ou iitV^^ 1^^ ' ^ ^"'"^' 

i other respects, to risk ];i^ ^^^^^..^^nync^Uonsoi^^^ 
perhaps many of his cuson^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ,,,, , ur 

description. And even it it ^^^le p ^^.^^.^^^j.^ jj^troduce and en- 
state of things be .P^""'^Xir nulnits? As topics, in which mo- 
large upon such topics in theipulpts ^.^^^^^ely concerned, 

rality and religion are both i»"^' '-/i^ f y^; f^Uy within the com- 
they seem to ccnne very -^^^^^^^J Still as slavery is in 
pass of their holy and >^g' .^^" "'V'^gtate, as well as a matter 
part an affair of civil regulation '^^ \»^ ^^^^^^^^ God, the aspect 
If conscience between every slav-^^ ^,^,1, 

- - *:Vof te^t ^S^^ 

lighten, impress, ^^"^ urge Ins heaieis ^,, .^rthy, and 

About 20 years ago peihaps a >e y . ^^^ ^,^^_ 

exemplary ;-"-^- «\^ '^^f f£,lf ^ CarJlina,\as^ have been 
pected by the world, n the >» t«i'" . i,^;,^ extent, on 

?„formecr> preached *r«^i;-"^^Ve'ft, the principles and pre- 
♦he topic of slavery, ^^^l^Z'^^^nxJ^y, and therefore 
cepts of the gospel. He did tins ^ ^j^^ ..^suh to himself 

determined to continue doing ,Jl a ^^.^^^^^ ^j,, peo- 

uiight be. The result howevei v. a In. ;^ 1 ^^^ „oi,-.lave-hold- 
ple of his charge, and .re»noval to >"^« ^^ ^ ^^j^^.^^ ,,e "lifted up 
Fng State, (I think (^^^no)S.n- ^^ ^,,^^^^. ,, ^od's 

his voice with strength, and was o ^^ ^^^^^^ ^j^^^^. ^^^^^^ 

people their transgres^misanjUoc^^ ^^^^^^^ and opinion, 
so great a change has aUen P"^^^ " ! .,, ossibly now lead to a^ 
that a similar course o proceed ng 1;; ' .^.^,,;a y,y u s. 11." of 
mflerent result. At all '^^'^^.t^^^^i^^nd power of Clark- 
" going among the phmte s ^^ '^^; ,„,,,,,.. And would .t not 



KVJ. -VI.] SLAVERY. 65 

Presbyterian Cluircli, the Associations *of th.e Baptist Churcli, 
the Conferences of the Methodist Church, and wherever Episco- 
pacy is found to exist, the Conventions of the Episcopal Church, in 
all the slave-holding States, to take this subject into serious and de- 
liberate consideration— appoint Committees to investigate it thor- 
oughly, — and bring in a carefully digested report. If these de- 
nominations, after having deliberated and acted separately on this 
matter, and especially, if conducted by their respective investiga- 
tions to the same or nearly the same result, would have a joint 
and general meeting of Committees from each, some plan of op- 
eration and co-operation might be devised, and set in motion for 
a speedy accompiishmeat of whatever the Word, and Spirit, and 
Providence of God might decide to be duty. Such a consultation 
and co-operation of Christian men and Christian Bodies of men, 
might eftect, and in a comparatively sJiort time too, a multitude 
of desirable results, on a subject of vital interest to the church and 
to the nation, Avhich never can be arrived at, Avhile they keep 
apart, and groan and sigh over evils under the pretext, that they 
are iri-emidiable. 

I would now take up my subject at the point wb.ere I left it, at 
the conclusion of my former number. I was there demolishing 
briefly some of the props of slavery, which the advocates of the 
system professed to derive from the Scriptures. Before that ar- 
ticle is entirely dispatched (for I do not conceive that mucii needs 
to be said on it in addition to what " Vigornius" has said,) I would 
ask, how far the slavery spoken of in the Scriptures is like the 
slavery in the West Indies and the United States '? and whether 
any parallel can be run between them 1 Do our laws make such 
protection and provision for the slave, as the Jewish law did ! 
When a Southern or "West Indian slave has his eye or his tooth 
struck out by passioil or by casualty on the part of his master, is 
that master bound by the law of the land, as the Jew was by the 
Mosaic law, to let such maimed slave go free for his eye or his 
tooth's sake 1 "I trow not." Rather may he not, if he please, 
dislodge the other eye, or demolish another tooth, and still retain 
the victim of his cruelty or his carelessness in as rigorous subjec- 
tion as ever ? In those parts of the slave-holding region, in which 
the gospel has long had an opportunity of exerting its civilizing, 
humanizing, and meliorating influences, such a Nero may be 
frowned on by his neighbours, and disadvantageously talked 
about by them ; but I am much' mistaken, if there is uni/ low, un- 
der the protecting wing of which the poor slave in such a case 
can find any refuge. And in other portions of slave country 
(and I apprehend there are not a few of this description) where 
gospel institutions have had no long nor firm footing, the peipe- 
trator of so foul a deed will not have to encounter even the dis- 
pleasure of his neighbours. 



*H SLAVERY. [no. Vi. 

Again, while the Jew was permitted to make "hewers of wood 
and drawers of water," (i. e. to reduce them to slavery) of hea- 
tlien captives taken in war, if he fancied to take any one of them 
to wife, he was at liberty to do so ; but, should he afterwards re- 
pudiate her, he was compelled to set her free ; he was debarred 
from selling her into slavery.) (See Deut. 21 : 10 — 14.) 1 ask 
again of the Christian advocate of slavery, (and 1 blush while I 
put such uncongenial words together) whether he discerns any 
such feature as this in the system of West Indian or Southern 
.slavery. What law compels a man to liberate, or interdicts him 
from selling his female slave whom he has humbled 1 Such a law 
never was, and I apprehend never Avill be, in the code. South- 
ern plantations are sometimes populated in part, in the manner 
above alluded to ; and the owner of his wide domain sees in the 
tillers of his ground or the drivers of his curricle, persons who 
stand towards him in the two-fold relation of .sons and slaves. I 
have occasionally heard of owners, from caprice, from humanity, 
from a sense of justice, or peradventure from twinges of con- 
science, dissolving in behalf of progeny the latter of these rela- 
tions, while at the same time ashamed of the former: but not 
an instance has occurred of the liberation of such a child of mis- 
fortune by the just or even the merciful interposition of the law. 

To another characteristic of dissonnace and dissimilarity be- 
tween the slavery related in the Bible and tliat exercised in mod- 
ern Christendom, I will now advert. Bible slaves were often 
found clad in armour. Abraham, who had slaves tliat Avere 
" bought w ith his money," armed three hundred and eighteen, and 
went in ])ursuit of the capturers of Lot ; and i'or any thing that- 
appears to the contrary on " the records," arms were, or might be, 
as common in their hands as in the ha)ids of their masters. Esau 
had 400 in his train. But, in slave-holding regions it is made a 
crime for a slave to be found in arms. The law wiU hardly allow 
him a fowling-piece in his cabin, wherewith to furnish a supply 
of wild-fowl for his master's table. No ! these " arms" must be 
found exclusively in the hands of those, who, by their own con- 
fession, have " exhausted their arguments." I have been able to 
sec nothing in the characteristics and circumstances of Bible- 
slavery, to accord with many things that arc regarded as funda- 
mental ingredients in United States slavery — nothing in the for- 
mer, of that jeahnisy and dread, that hauteur and distance on 
the one hand, and tliat cringing ignoraiice and degradation on tlie 
other, which have ever been inseparable from the latter. In the 
one I seem to see cojifidence, and concord, and content, and a 
recognition of common interests ; in the other, distrust and appie- 
hension, discontent, variance, and a conllict of inteiests, are but 
too visible. In the iormer I behold r/i,'/</.s' acknowhulged as ap- 
pertaining to both sides ; and these rights defined and defended by 



JJO. VI.] ^AVEU^. 65 

specific legislation ; in the latter, as far as law is eoncerned, there 
is a recognition of rights only on one side ; wrongs and a re(iuire- 
ment of submission to them, are the almost exclusive portion of 
the other. 

1 have not been able to discover a particle of evidence, that the 
slaves, which God at any time permitted his people to hold, were 
required or expected to be kept in intense and interminable ig- 
norance, as is the wish and practice of too many, quite too many 
slave-holders, in this blessed land of republican liberty ; nor do I 
read in the Bible, that such ignorance and mental degradation 
were ever regarded as absolutely essential to obedience and sub- 
mission, which is the popular doctrine Avith multitudes in this re- 
gion of light and liberty. Nor do I find the slaves recognized in 
Scripture, ever spoken of by such contemptuous and contempti- 
ble epithets, as are attached to them by universal consent and 
practice in those Christian countries, in which they are now 
found to exist. " To be sold at such a place, and on such a day 
a very prime gang* of slaves," is an advertisement, which I pre- 
sume, was never issued by any of the patriarchs or other good 
men in Bible story, however common in the AVest-Tndies or the 
slave-holding states of North America. 

I have been considerably, at once amused and disgusted, at the use 
of the figure called by rhetoricians, I think catachresis, by the Com- 
mittee of the Georgia legislature in reference to this subject. " In 
the simplicity," say they, " of patriarchal government, we would 
remain master and servantt under our own vine and fig tree." 
How much modern and Christian slavery resembles this " sim- 
plicity of patriarchal government" vaunted of here, must be appar- 
ent from the contrast, in which the two have been already plac- 
ed, and will farther appear before we have done with this discus- 
sion. The following remarks from the July number of the " Chris- 
tian Observer" are so appropriate, that I make no apology for in- 
troducing them in this connexion. " A most suicidal allusion; 
see the passage Micah 4. 4, Avhich describes a scene of peace and 
humanity, when swords shall become plough-shares, and "ewer?/ 
maw," slaves as well as others, shall sit down under his own vine 
and fig-tree, '^'^ none daring tomalcehim afraicV Where the Com- 
mittee go on to say", " and confide for safety upon Him who of 
old time looked down upon this state of things without Avrath," 
the Christian Observer comments thus : " A palpable misstate* 
ment, for the Bible is full of denunciations against this and every 
species of oppression ; and it is expressly said, (.Ter. 34. 17) in, 

* Is it not time for Christians at least, at the South, to discontinue th^; vile 
epitliet and use some other ? 

i " Are the Committee then, after all," (says the Cliristian Ohserver ) ■• 6C- 
cj-etly ashamed of the odious soynd of SLAVE.'' 



66 



SLAVERY. lN«- ^'*' 



1 • ♦ ttTi.iic c'litli the Lord, Because ye 
reference to tins very ^''^i'^'^'^ :^lZ\7ZTh^^^^^^^^ one to 

have not harkened unto me m P «*^1^^'^ "^ j,",'^^^^ ,,,u ^(roclaun 
h.s brother, and every man o h s ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ pestilence, and 
liberty for you sa.h he Lo d, o tl.e s.o. d,^^ ^^^^^1^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ 

to the famine. ^o tai irom t' ^ J^ ° .-oVided means for its in- 
this state of things without ^T ' « V ^ ^^^f ^Xc..^^ under the in- 
stant amelioration, and for it. "itimate cxt ci , 

fluence of our mild and I'^^y/^^'-f'^^-^Von L'' The allusion 
to the codes of" Athens, and fepaita, and Home . 

to the patriarchal ages is quite ^f "' f, ' ,^^';\^j/;j ".^ he Geoi- 
«.ore like it among tl-; savage ^;^;^^^^,, .....ev- 
gians '^^•^ -\P^n^etual wa, tna m^^^^^^ ^^, comparative mild- 

er It m.ght be, it was at '•;f \^ \^;\^^^\^,,,,ter felt no scruple in 
„ess and mutnal conhdence .'j ^f ^^:^^;^% ^,,^ „, ^ome instan- 
putting arms into the hanus ol hi ^^a^ c ^^^ ^^ 

ces, under the ancient slave ^yff "' \\;^*^,;^"i -^^hrnn. U : 34, 35.) 
,„arriage to his slave. f-^/^/^^j-X'^^. n the South-western 
Is any thing like this t^^*^, '^Jf • "^'"1' ^„ colonies? AVould the 
parts of the Union or in ^^ ^^^;;^ the volunteer arms of 
patriarchs of our plantations feel secure in n ^^^ 

their prmeval servants against an aimy ot tieemen ^ 
server, for .Tuly, N. Y. Efl^t'O"-) ^^.^^ ^^^.^^^^^. .^^. 

I would add here, what I ^PP^^*'^ "?,,,,„ ^^.tern irom any 
stance of essential deviation in our ^J^^^^ '^f ^^^ 
mentioned in the Bible, ^-^ '"/^^^fiSt in te imony against 
slaves IS never recognized as ^f ^">J^ -;\';^,.^i or political code 
a freeman. 1 ask, in what article of ^^;'^ ^;°\^ ,^^ ^ ^,^17 writ- 
of the Jews such -Ynactn^jU . t met^wiU^ ^^ ^^,^^^ 

ten law on the records of the biDie, win Hieronymus. 

unanimous consent, " It is not m mt. 

SIAVBRV. No. VIS. 

Frovi the Recorder S, Telegraph, Aor 11, 1825. 
MESSRS. Ei>i.oRS,-My ^-t closedwUh a .immary^^^ 
theunscripturalcharacterofslaveiv a itist ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^ 

West Indies and in the United b^^^^^^ ^^j. ^^i^. 

point out various «P«^'fi%""^^^f,^"^'lt. n our country, and 

■a.nong the people ot God ^^^ ^.^^.^ ^.^,^,^ , 

.^lid s^nf'Stf ^Id in^oof oHbe entire contrariety, the 



NO. VII.] SLAVERY. G7 

diametrical opposition between slavery and fhe principles upon 
which the American government professes to be founded, as re- 
cognized in the Declaration of Independence. That instrument 
expressly enumerates libertrj, as, among other consitaents, one 
of the unalienable rights oi all mankind. At first sight it appears 
utterly inexplicable, that the natural rights of the American ne- 
gro should not have come witiiin the purview of those, who, with 
so much ability, good sense, and feeling, drew up that interesting 
document ; and that it should have been still farther totally over- 
looked by the statesmen of the country in Congress assembled. 
But it appears practicable to account for the omission at that time, 
by considering how mucli the delegates from the different colonies- 
had to accomplish — how they were surrounded with dilliculties, 
beset with dangers, and struggling for national existence. They 
had enough on their hands to lay ail the energies of body, mind, 
and heart, under contribution ; and the adjustment of the rights 
of the American slave was, under the circumstances then exist- 
ing, too delicate, and diificult, and intricate a business, to be des- 
patclied with facility or with speed. These considerations seem 
rationally to account for the oversight of the slave question, at the 
time the rights of man were undergoing argument and adjustment. 
We could not then be expected to do, as the South American Re- 
publics have recently done, — emancipate the slaves, — and thus 
act consistently. They had got through their struggle ; and their 
fears Avere over. We were at the commencement of ours, and 
knew not then how it would terminate. 

But after North American Independence Avas not only declar- 
ed but established, and the tumult of war was visible, and the clan- 
gor of arms was audible no more ; — wlien peace spread her Avings 
over the land, and prosperity Avas foUoAving in her train ; — Avhen 
one interesting event after another was transpiring to give solid- 
ity to the Republic; and to shed an increase of glory around her ; 
— hoAv, hoio came came it to pass, that iven then the groans of Af- 
rica continued, as much as ever before, unheard ; and no solita- 
ry tongue lifted an appeal in her behalf. Perhaps in part, Ave 
may charitably account for this strange and singular omission, 
from the comparitive darkness of the age ; for much additional 
light has been since shed upon the rights of man. Perhaps too 
the national Legislature took it for granted (and as since has ap- 
peared, much too readily) that the different states could easily 
discover, and Avould readily take speedy preparatory steps to 
perform an obvious duty, — to save our consistency in particular^ 
as Avell as our character in general. 

Or shall Ave resort to some other hypotlie.=?is to account for this 
anomaly ? This question seems to have considerably perplexed 
Vigornius ; (see No. IV,) and he says, after quoting the " .self-ev- 



K0. Vn.] SLAVERY. 68 

ident truths" to which we have just referred in the Declaration 
of Independence, " Either the slave was forgotten — or he was 
not recognized as a human being — or he is an exception to the 
universal rule — or lastly his right is abrogated or superseded hy 
the paramount right of his master," &-c. Vigornius has not tokl 
us, which of these four modes of accounting for the singular fact, 
he is inclined to adopt. As a dweller at the South from my cra- 
dle, and from my acquaintance with the state of things there for 
a score of years and upAvards, I am strongly tempted to make 
choice of the 2d hypothesis to account for this remarkably insu- 
lated fact. I cannot think, that the memory of our statesmen was 
so treacherous, that they "forgot the slave" nor that they regarded 
him as " an exception to the universal rule," as in that case, I 
ihink, they would, in the instrument itself, have at least alluded 
to the exception — nor can I admit, that they regarded the rights 
of the slave as set aside or " superseded or abrogated by any 
prior or paramount right of his master." Those who were wil- 
ling to tug through an eigiit years' war, rather than be taxed 
three pence a pound on tea, would never have overlooked the 
hundred fold more aggravated suffering, and degrading debase- 
ment of the sons of Africa in our midst. I am morally compel- 
led then to take up with the second hypothesis — the slave " was 
not recognized as a human being." — The whole history of slave- 
ry at the South, as far and as long as I have been acquainted 
with it (until within a iew years, say between 12 and 20, during 
which there has been a manifest and growing alteration in the 
conceptions of the whites and in the treatment of the blacks) riv- 
' ets the conviction, that the slave was not regarded, sf/7'c</y s^Jfo^'- 

ing, as a human being ; but a sort of mid-link between brute and 
-^MV.**^ i^ii'^ — partly belonging to each and AvhoUy to neither. For if 

, f ,, . the slave was murdered, « ^;a///7//i/Jc was all the penalty ; and 
"*"• 'that because the nmrdered individual was nothing hut a negro. 
But if the slave Avas stolen, and property thus to the amount of 
several hundred dollars lost, then the gallows and the halter ap- 
peared in view, as the remuneration of the thief. Nay, I have 
known, during the period of my life, more, many more than one 
or two or three cases, in which a dog or a horse was a dearer ob- 
ject to his master, than his slave, and he would be more angry, 
and more vengeful at an injury done to the fornier than the lat- 
ter. Was I not right, Messrs. Editors, in looking at such a fact 
as this, to infer that a negro cannot be a human being? Again, 
another fact— a fact I have already alluded to, and one which 
still exists — confirms my convictions. It is this— the declaration 
of a hundred negro witnesses, (even though their uniformly good 
character could be tcstilicd by their masters,) to any fat-t, in which 
the disadvantage of a white man of no character was conc«rned, 



7V-0. VII.] SLAVERY. W 

availed, and I believe now avails, nothing. Was T not right, in 
believing- that the negro was hardly recognized as a human be- 
ing ? And other tacts I might mention of a similar complexion, 
but I would not be needlessly tedious. 

But it is time I sliould say something to redeem the pledge giv- 
en at the close of my lirst number, and this seems a suitable place 
to introduce sometiiing of tliis kind. In that part of mv discus- 
sion, I ventured to say, in opposition to the writer in the Christian 
Spectator, on whose pieoes 1 had commenced some remarks, that 
there was an approximation at least, to acknowledgement of tli3 
negro's rights, in the slave-holding states. In some of the slave- 
liolding states, negro-kiliing has recently been construed as mur- 
der : this looks like giving the slave a right to " life,'' though 
that of " liberty and^lie pursuit of Iiappiness" be still denied him. 
I have not indeed yet heard of a case under this recent law, in 
which the penalty "of murder has actually overtaken any slave- 
killer, and I apprehend it would be exceedingly dillicult actually 
to carry into execution this new statute: and especiaily, if the 
breach of it was committed by a man of importance and iniiuence 
in society. I trust however our Northern brethren will not be 
reluctant, as they in too many instances are, to give us credit for 
passing such a law. We have rigid laws too against duelling: 
but while our very legislators are duellists and slave-holders, I 
hardly dare anticipate the execution of a duellist, a murderer of 
one description, — or of a negro-killer, a munlcier of another kind. 

And now what shall we do or say ] That slavery, I mean such 
as it now exists in the United States, is against the Bible, against 
common sense, against the natural rights of man, against the iirst 
principles, the very stamina of our free republic, and against our 
interests too, (a point indeed, which I have not and shall not dis- 
cuss, but which has been abundantly demonstrated by abler pens,) 
if I mistake not is sufficiently obvious. We have within the*e Uni- 
ted States a million and a half, rather near two millions of men, 
who, if they arc not, yet "of right, ought to be free and independ- 
ent ;" whom, according to our Declaration of Independence, 
" their Creator has endowed with certain unalienable rights." 
But while it is just, v/ould it be safe, or wise, or benevolent, either 
to them, or to their owners, to invest tliem immcdiatchj with 
those rights 1 And if it would not, does not this very iniportajit 
circumstance peremptorily forbid the discharge of this obligation 
nt present. " Sahii^ popufi siiprema /f/." Among writers on this 
subject, I know not that I have met with one, who lias advocated 
immediate emancipatioti for a moment, professing at the same 
time his belief, that the above impediments do exist. But I oil- 
serve a difference of opinion as to the point wliether there would 
be that interference vvith safety and with happiness to either par- 
tv, — somr> maintaining tl>e ailirmative, otiiers the ucgativr. — and 
10 



70 .-jLAVKftV. [XO. VII. 

I hope both are equally philanthropic in their intentions, though 
wideiy ditiering in their conceptions. The practicabiUty of grad- 
ual eina)icipatioii no one pretends to doubt ; and all tliroughout 
the United States, except tlie selfish and the sordid, the covetous, 
and the tyrannical, I piesume, desire it. 

Ilavini' been occuj>ied in this discussion so much longer than I 
intended when I began it, I must ibrego, or at least postpone the 
examination of this question, as 1 have still much more to add on 
otlier topics, ccnnected with this subject. All 1 would now 
yay is, that Providence seems to liave opened the dobr for begin- 
ning to do soniethmg, wit/iout further delaij. The Colonization 
Society, slow at first in its operations, and looked upon with the 
scowling eye of suspicion, alike at the North and at the South, 
has been doing its work surely — triumphing over one difficulty, 
disapjiointment, and opposition afier another, till it can now stamp 
the seal " probatum est," on its fair and successful experiment. 

There is a Colony of free, enlightened, civilized, christianized 
blacks in Africa, an American Colony — there are in it at least two 
Christian cienominations — there ar( cl.urches and there are schools 
— ^Acre;.-; protection — there are fortifications and munitions of war, 
if conflict be stiil necessary — a handful ofthesecolonists havevan- 
quished a host of natives, who on one occasion rose up against them, 
and threatened to destroy them. They have selected a healthy and 
fertile spot — 400 colonists are there already — 100 more are jnst 
ready to embark", if not actually now on their way. This scheme, 
derided by some, for its visional y character, opposed by others, on 
one ground bv one, for another reason by another, is now (to use 
Mr. Jeiferson's language,) " in the full tide of successful experi- 
ment." The immediate and ostensible object of this Society, 
and that which was avowed as its exclusive object, at the com- 
mencement of its operations, and of its calls on Christian charity, 
was, the transfer, with their own consent, of as many of the free 
blacks in our country (the whole of whom I believe amount to 
nearly half a million) as provision could be made for. The condi- 
tion of the free blacks in the Northern and still more in th.e Middle 
states, is much less respectable and much more wretched, than 
that of the same class of persons at the South ; nay, than that of 
very many slaves themselves, who have the happiness to be ble?s- 
»d "with good owners. After all that our Northern brethren say 
of the hardshi])s of Southern slavery, the distance, and hauleur, 
and tyranny of masters, they have very little cause to " glory over 
us." ' The "complexion of a black freeman at the North keeps 
liim at nearly the same distance fiom the wliite freeman, — as to 
social intercourse with them, — as to rights of electing or being 
elected to oflice, as fo prospect of rising to eminence and distinc- 
tion, — as to a multitude of other things, — as the comi)lexion and 
condition both of a colured slave at the South does. The North- 



XO. VIII.] SLAVERY. 7 I 

era free black is not unfrequently more degraded menfallv, rnor- 
ailj, and physically, than the Southern Slave. So say Cuurls of 
Justice and jails. 

In one of the numbers (I think) of tlie Christian Spectator, a 
Captain Otis is said to state, that the colonists (at Liberia) from 
the country are preferable to those from the cities, and th(>s.e from 
the South to those from the North, as being more easily satislied, 
more tractable and less averse to labor. Free blacks a* the 
North are as troublesome in some respects, as slaves at the South 
are in others. The Colonization Society proposes to tlirow off 
this burden by degrees, thus relieving the North of a cumbrous 
and expensive population, and hoping to improve atthe same time 
the character and condition, and increase tiie usefulness of this 
population by transplantation. This great and good institution, 
has had much to encounter, on opposite grounds, from the dilfer- 
cnt latitudes of the United States. Avith v.hat propriety in each 
case, I propose to inquire in my next. IIiEnoNYMrs. 

— ©QO— 

From the Recorder <^.- Telegraph, Dec. 2, 182.',. 
Messrs. Editors, — In my last I introduced to my reader the 
American Colonization Society, as an institution furnishing the 
most unexceptionable mode, as well as offering a most resistless 
motive, for the indulgence of those feelings both of justice and hu- 
manity, which the previous discussions were calculated to excite. 
If to hold our fellow-creatures in involuntary servitude, be a con- 
duct equally at variance with the benevolent spirit of the gorpei, 
and of that declaration of unalienable human rights,upon Avhich, 
as a sure and strong basis, our republic rests — as soon as we can 
discern a plan, by the operation of v.'hich v/e can with safety hurst 
the bonds of the oppressed, and restore to those we have wronged 
the rights, wliich God and nature gave them, and of which tyran- 
ny and cruelty have deprived them, every humane and benevolent 
mind will rejoice at the discovery, and avail itself of the advan- 
tages it offers. The primary, professed, and direct f • ject of the 
above institution indeed is, to restore to the land of their lathers 
those in this country, who already are nominally possessed of lil)- 
erty, but to whom, from their complexion and the unconquerable 
prejudices felt towards them by the whites, and a variety of otlier 
circumstances, their personal freedom is of couijjaratively little 
value ; and who therefore have no prospect of rising to distinction 
or attaining to eminence, but are fcund among the most vicious 
Jind degraded of the American population. This institiiticn has 



2^ SLAVEUY. [no. VI 1*. 



had lb encounter from the out-set directly opposUe objections from 
difterent sections of our connnon country. When it has asked 
for aid from tlie Kortli, the North has said, "This is a scheme 
of Southern poHcy, a wicked device of slave-holding men, Avho, 
desirous of i ivetini>; more firmly, and perpetuating more certainly, 
the fetters of slavery, are anxious to rid themselves of a popula- 
tion, whose presence, influence, and example, have a tendency 
to produce discontent amoiig the slaves, and to furnish them 
With incitements to a spirit of rebellion and insurrection. "S\c 
cannot encourage such a scheme." When the South has been 
impoituned to lend a helping hand, the South has replied, ''An 
enemy hath done this." " This is the contrivance of men hos- 
tile to tlie state of tiiiiigs among ns, of men whose ultimate de- 
sign is to effect universal emancipation, and this is nothing but 
an opening Avedge." The very fact, that a scheme is met with 
objections so diamcirically opposite, and so comjiletely destruct- 
ive oi each other, aniounts of itself in my mind almost to a dem- 
onstration of its excellence, and a proof of its integrity. Sup- 
pose we should concede to each party, that its surmises and sus- 
picions are weli-foundcd — what then ? is there not motive sufii- 
cient, in the go(,'d that is to accrue to the class of people immedi- 
ately concerned, to induce every philanthropist to aflord it his 
hearty concurrence ? Is not the investment of many thousands 
of people with the entire rights of freemen, with the privilege of 
Reif-gove]inncnt, with tlic advantages of o distinct national exist- 
ence, an object oisulUcient magnitude to ensure in its behalf the 
prayers of the })ious and the contributions of the opulent 1 Is not 
the iiitroduction of civilization and Christiiinify into the benighted 
continent of Africa, and tisc gradual abridgment and final arrest 
of the accursed slave-trade, (a result that nnist ensue from the es- 
tablishment and increase of civilized and Christian colonies) n 
consideration of snflicient magnitude to warm every heart, and to 
set in elijcient motion every iiand ? 

Men must be expected to speculate on the tendency and result 
of such a scheme as the Colonization Society, according to their 
wishes, hopes, and fears; nor are the frionls, patrons, and suppor- 
ters of that institution at all answerable ibrthc contingent conse- 
quences, to whicli it may conduct, while they themselves adhere 
to their original )>rinciples, and kec]) distinctly in view their pri- 
mary and avowed design. As far as facts, that have occurred 
since tlie origin of the Society, go to developt; its tendencies, it 
would appear that it is exerting a very favourable influence on the 
cause of emancii)ation I'.nd liberty. A nund)er of bcMievoIent in- 
dividuals have rejoiced in the opjiortunily thus aflbrded them of 
gratifying tlie feelings of their lieartr, in a way consistent with 
their own safety and the safety of the connnunity, and compatible 
vith the laws of the State they respectively reside in. For no 
Le"-islature can reasonably or will probably prohibit emancipa- 



■V -i^ 



so. VIII,] SLAVEUV* *3 

tiou, when it is followed by tlie immediate reiuoval of the manu- 
mitted to a distant region, wiiere no injmioiis influence can possi- 
bly be exerted on the enslaved population that remain behind. 

It remains to be seen, whetlier the Legislatures of the respect- 
ive States will do any thing by pecuniary appropriations or m any 
otlierwav to favor and further the causeof emancii)ation; or wheth- 
er they will still frown on every attempt, and scout at every pro- 
posal to this eftect made by any nou-slave-holding State, and in- 
tercept and interrupt every movement which Congress may make 
towards such an object. Should they pertinaciously and persever- 
ingly adopt this latter course, still they cannot obstruct tiie^ cur- 
rent of benevolence, which flows in the hearts of individuals. 
Thefie may, if they please, as some have done already, spontane- 
ously emancipate their own slaves, either immediately if they can 
aftbrd to do it, and if the character and habits of their slaves are 
such as that they may be safely trusted with their liberty ; or they 
may put them upon a course of self-emancipation, which may ren- 
der their freedom a double blessing, when they shall have piu> 
chased and merited it. 

I have little or no hoi>e,tliat the Colonization Society will of 
itself be competent to the mighty task of transporting to Africa 
the million and a half of slaves now in the United States, slrould 
they receive their freedom, together with the half million of color- 
ed persons already free. But it has already done much, and I am 
persuaded is destined to do considerably more, towards opening the 
eyes of the American community to the possibility and practicabili- 
ty of the transfer of a very great portion of the Africans in our 
country, to the land of their forefathers : it will do much towards 
turning the attention of individuals of State Legislatures and oi 
Congress to the subject of transportation; of convincing them 
that if «//?«7/z<«//f in this scheme, — if individuals will do their 
part, and the State Legislatures and the National Legislature 
will do theirs, much can he accomplished ; the monstrous evil, 
under which the nation groans, can be either in due time entire- 
ly removed, or at all events, very materially qualilied, very con- 
slderaby alleviated. It now costs but $-M) each, to convey the 
blacks to Africa, and the directors of the institution assure us, 
that when farther progress is made in this good work, and the 
colony attains Qiore growth and stability, so that a much larger 
number of emigrants may go over at one time, the price ot a 
passage can be reduced to $10, including too (if 1 mistake not) 
their provisions. Suppose therefore, that the nation could bo 
brought to take hold of this subject with spirit and with vigour: 
that the slave-holding States, seeing their safety and their in- 
terests, together with those of unborn posterity, materially invoh- 
ed in this remarkable enterprize of the 19th century, should not 
only by tl^eir own legislatures make large appropiiations, but 
also give tlieir consent and even make their requot, that Coir- 



74 SLAVERY. [no. viir. 

gross should act — suppose Congress to lake the matter up as a 
national business, popular in a high degree to all their constituents, 
what a mighty and resistless impulse could, under these circum- 
stances, be given to this weighty concern. Many of the emigraiits 
would be in a condition to meet the expense of their own trans- 
portation — many, as some already have been, could be aided by 
their masters — the treasuries of the respective States and of the 
nation could furnish the remainder of the requisite aid. The mo- 
tion brought already before Congress by Mr. King, might be ac- 
ted upon and carried into efiect, and probably other ways and 
means, one after another, devised, to reach the emergency of the 
^se, when the feelings and interests of the whole country shall 
have become thoroughly embarked in the cause. At all events, 
the experiment might be made, without any harm arising from it, 
to a considerable extent. If all that is desirable cannot be accom- 
plished, we shall at least render some thousands of individualsre- 
spectable, prosperous, and happy in Africa, who wiil ever be de^ 
graded in America, and be the tenants of our jails for their crimes, 
or of our poor houses for their pauperism. A great, and signal, and 
permanent blessing will be conferred on long-injured and griev(<us- 
ij'^-wronged Africa, by j)lanting on her shores one colony alter 
another of civilized. Christianized, and instructed freemen, who 
will gradually dittuse over the whole continent the blessings and 
the privileges, which fall to their own favoured lot. 

And until wealthy and powerful public«bodies can be brought 
to take an active and efficient share in this mighty and glo- 
rious work, or whether they can be brought to do so or not, why 
may not all the various benevolent institutions in our land be do- 
ing something steadily and constantly, in aid of, and in co-op'e- 
ration with the American Colonization Society. If Africa has 
been wronged, not so much by the Southern States as by the 
United States — if the guilt of slavery is not a sectional but a na- 
tional sin, — how is it, thatthc claims of that injured, bleedingcon- 
tinent have been so much overlooked in those grand enterprizes 
uf Christian benevolence, which have been felt, more or less, in 
every other continent and by. every other jieople. We have been 
evangelizing the uwrld of mariners : and I acknowledge the justice 
of their claims. Yet while they have been heretofore only a 
neglected, the Africans have, besides this, been an injured and 
oppressed people, " meted out and trodden down." We have 
been looking after the dispersed and persecuted seed of Abraham ; 
bfit America has not dispersed nor persecuted them — she has 
been their friend, when they have been regarded and treated as 
•• outcasts" by the rest of the world. ^V'c have had "bowels of 
compassion" for the poor savages in our Western wilderness ; 
and deep and long have been our arrears to them — yet we have 
not enslaved them from one generation to another. On our fu- 



NO. Vin.] ^AVERY. 75 

turc conduct let this sentiment stand con-spicuous, "Not that we 
luve the Indians less, but that we love the Africans more." Will 
n«t the American Board come up to the help of Africa, and send 
her missionaries to that no£;lected, dreary, needy, yet now prom- 
isino; region] Will not Education Societies, particularly the 
American Education Society, do something- to furnish her witli 
well qualified pastors and teachers of her own complexion ? Will 
not, in a word, every institution of Christian benevolence, which 
can With any consistency or propriety bring- this matter within 
the scope of its operations, make it a subject o? immediate, intense, 
and interesting inquiry, " What can be done for the beiieiit of 
Africa ?" 

Eiforts of this nature will have the happiest effects in more than 
one or two, — in a considerable variety of ways. It will ]>resent 
the subject more perpetually, and keep it more prominently in pub- 
lic view. Institutions, having entirely distinct, ^et by no means 
discordant or inconsistent ends, may find, in the Colonization So- 
ciety, some ground npon which they all can act. All the distin- 
guishing features of each may find something- here oh which to 
impress themselves. Where is there more missionary ground, 
than in Africa? Missionary stations might be formed, and mis- 
sionary establishments created, either within or without the pre- 
cincts of Liberia ; and in eitiier case miglit find the existence and 
flourishing state of this Christian colony, a powerful and eftlcient 
auxiliarv and co-operator. Where is there more jjromisiiig 
ground, than is presented by Africa for missionary labour ? The 
minds of the natives are to bo regarded rather as ?ni-occupicd, 
than as jjrr-occupied. One of the most serious obstacles to the 
spread of the gospel among the Asiatic Heathen, on whom much 
labour and money have been expended, is, that a pompous splen- 
did, imposing and firmly riveted system of false religion, has to 
be dislodged from the mind, previous to the introduction into it 
of gospel truth ; whereas the African is rather without any reli- 
gion at all, or it is of so simple a character, as to present but a 
feeble obstruction to the spread of gospel truth over the hearts of 
individuals, and through the regions they occupy. But we have 
more than theory to encourage us here. If I mistake not, fnct.< 
exist in sufticient abundance from experiments already made, to 
evince, that the African mind is susceptible of intellectual cul- 
ture, the African heart accessible in no small degree to evangel- 
ical impression. Have not the London Missionary Society done 
much, even among the proverbially stupid Hottentots? Has not 
the English Colony at Sierra Leone, into the constitution and 
management of which the religion of Christ has been essentially 
incorporated, remarkably flourished ? Let Lancastrian schools 
be introduced and multiplied in t'le region I speak of; let schools 
of a still higher order be formed in sufircient numbers to meet th« 



lU 



[no. VI li. 



exigency of the case, and let the American Sunday School Uni- 
on take its part also in the cidture of the African mind and heart ; 
and I am greatly mistaken, if a few years will not present fruits 
of these labfjrs, which will not shrink i'ram a comjjarison with 
the success the gospel has had in any other quarter, Jiot except- 
ing the Society and Sandwich Isles. If these representations are 
U'lie or prohable, is not America bound to be doing, by her vari- 
ous Christian institutions, full as much for Africa as I'or any por- 
tion of the globe whatever ? And is not tjiis obligation increased 
an hundred fold, when we consider, that "her debtors we are" — 
■we have, l)y our ancestors and by ourselves, wronged, and plun- 
dered, and oppressed that unhapj)y people, and are as solemnly 
bound injustice, as we are required by mercy, to lift her from her 
degradation, and to give her both the instructions of literature, 
and the influences and consolations of Christianity. Let all our 
mslitntions then which can be l)rought to bear on tiiis point at all, 
be up and doing without further delay. 

I cannot consent to bring this communication to a close, with- 
out oftering a few remarks on an article in the New York Daily 
Advertiser, and another -in the Charleston Courier, which have 
iallen in my w^ay, since I wrote the last number. Both the arti- 
cles in question are editorial. In the iormer (viz. of Oct. 18) 
<juotations are made from the Richmond Inquirer of October 1 1th 
iVom a })iece under the signature of Caius Gracchus to " Bush- 
rod Washington, Esq. President of the American Colonization 
Society," finding fault with that Society for having changed the 
character it assumed at its outset, for Jiow avowing that its ob- 
ject is the abolition of slavery, whereas, when it commenced, it 
])rofcssed to aim at nothing but the removal of the free colored 
jiopulation. How far this charge is just, I am not able to say — 
nor whetlier, if it be well founded, the change may not be vindi- 
cated u()on the principle, that public opinion is more and more 
])ointing and looking to emancipation, and that the Society ought 
to conform to this current of ])ubUc sentiment. My only view in 
noticing the article hereis, to counteract the influence of the con- 
eluding remark of the I'^ditor of the N. Vork Daily Advertiser. 
He says, "we reeomend this mattcrto those friends and support- 
ers of the Cidonization Society in ii\e FrcH; States, who flatter 
themselves witli the idea that the j)eople of the Slave States woidd 
be glad to free their slaves, if they coidd only devise any practi- 
cable scheme for the purpose." I am sorry lor tliis remark. 
Tliough it is not to Ix; pretended, that the slave holders /« ^f7/fro/ 
are at present favourable to emancipation, or that Legislatures at 
present would adopt measures lor sudi a purpose, arc there not 
many individuals, that will consent to emancipate — are there not 
some anxious for t!ic progress of emancipation ? Have we not 
met with a sullicient nundxr of encouraging, very encournning 



>'0. IX. J gLAVr.RY; ' * 

facts, to prove this ? and will not this si)lriK iiicreaso, ilie more 
the suhject is discussed, and the fiicdities for emancipation aj>-. 
pear? The Editor of tiie Courier in the other article alluded to, 
speaks with great confidence, that the slave-holding States wdl te- 
naciously adhere to the slave system. This remains to be prov- 
ed — 1 trust Northern men, as well as Southern, will continue the 
experiment of tlie Colonization Society. Hieuony5U'S. 



S£^V£SRT. i^o. £Z. 



From the Recorder fy Telegraph, Dec. 9, 182.^. 

Messrs. Editors, — Inclination, as well as a conviction that I 
have sufficiently occupied your columns, and laid your own pa- 
tience and that of your readers under rather unreasonable contri- 
bution, induces me to desire to close my part in this discussion, or 
at least to suspend it, until something extraordinary should require 
my re-appearance. My object in one or two important respects, 
has been already gained. The attention of the South and West, 
i.e. of slave-holders, as I observe from several communications of 
your correspondents, have been roused to the subject, and I hope 
will never sleep again, until something efficient is done or resolv- 
ed on. Much as I might be disposed to complain of some of the 
harsh epithets, which have dropped from the pen of Vigornius, 
which have been made a subject of complaint by a v/riter in Lou- 
isiana under the signature of Philo, in your paper of October '21, 
I would rather that myself, and my slave-holding neighbours, 
should be ten times more provoked than we have been, than be 
suffijred to remain in that criminal apathy |ind torpor, in which 
heretofore we have been too fond of indulging. 

I am gratified to find the asserticni in my first number, that 
Christians at the North and at the South think and feel alike on 
the subject of slavery, or that friendly mutual discussion would 
bring tliem to the same point, so soon verified. Besides myself, 
you have had four slave-holding correspondents, one in North- 
Carolina, one in Mississippi, a third in Louisiana, and a fourth 
in Virginia; s.nA\.\\c^y oM substantially agree w'lXh Vigornius and 
myself, as far as principles are concerned. The North-Carolini- 
an regrets, that a Carolinian wi-ote his piece at all ; and consid- 
ers it as calculated to arrest the current of benevolence towards 
Africa, which ha.« besfunto flow from manv bosom>^ — the Missis- 
1! 



7§ .S.I^iVEUY. [no. IX. 

sippi concspoiideiit liiRlri fault Avith Vigoriuus for exciting the 
slaves, as he apprehended him, to insurrection and massacre ; but 
at the same time, falls completely into his track, as to the projiri- 
cty of emancipation, proposes a plan himself, and wishes " Con- 
gress to be memoralized by each state and territory, in the Union, 
to take the subject of slavery, With the best means of emancipat- 
ing all the slaves in the states and territories, into consideration ;" 
and says he will be " extremely happy if Vigornius or any other 
person will point out any more rational plan," than that proposed 
by himself " for effecting the most speedy emancipation of every 
slave in the United States" — the Louisianian, without any alarm 
or apprehension from the effects of Vigornius' pieces on the slaves, 
is highly offended with that writer on another ground — viz. for 
comparing the present holders of slaves to "the ancient pirate, 
the modern corsair, or tjie savages of the forest." But with all 
his vituperations, he begs that no one should " infer that he is an 
advocate for slavery, and says with considerable emphasis, " once 
more I repeat, let Vigornius point out tlie means of getting clear 
of the evil of slavery, with safety to those who are immediately 
concerned, and he will find many, even in the South aiid West, 
ready to second him" — the Virginian reques^ts you to republish 
"a Resolution of the General Assembly of the P, esbyterian 
Church adopted in 1818 on the subject of slavery and the Coloni- 
zation Society." Including myself, here are then five slave-hold- 
ing, cis-Potomac writers, bearing a decided protest against slave- 
ry, and calling for its remedy or removal. 

The only question, then, that remains to be decided, is, how this 
great desideratum sliall be accomplished. In my fourth number 
I suggested one plan, not indeed, originating with myself, but 
with some " traveller in the Valley of ]Mississippi" — the Missis- 
sipi correspondent proposes another, which I am bold to say, 
however extravagant the declaration may appear, is completely 
adequate to the removal of the evil. Let the states unitedly au- 
thorize and ])etition Congress to extricate us from this curse, and 
to uidade this burden, and it will be done with all imaginable ease. 
And if the Louisianian will attentively re-peruse the sixth number 
of Vigornius, I think he must abate somewhat of his warmth 
against that writer ; when he perceives him " pointing out some 
means of getting clear of the evil of slavery." Indulge me with 
making a few extracts from the number just alluded to. " Per- 
haps ncj single remedy will be sufficient. Let the slaves through- 
out the country be liberated as fast as possible. Let them have 
an oj)portunity to obtain a conqKitent subsistence, and more, by 
the enjploynients of freemen. If Congi ess shall make an ajtpro- 
priation of land, let it not l>e neglected. If Hayti throws open 
lier doors, let them be entered. In a word, if any project be de- 
vised, which promises to hasten the extermination of slavery, and 



NO. IX.] SLAVERY. ^^ 

improve the condition of the slave, let it be encouraged and urg- 
ed onward. Every citizen in the country is bound to do some- 
thintr, and let every one do it in the way which his wisdom or in- 
clination ajiproves. But I may be allowed to suggest to the read- 
er of these articles, whether the plan of the American Colonization 
Society is not the most flattering and magnificent, which has ever 
been proposed to our benevolence, patriotism, and piety. Why 
cannot the whole nation patronize the object as a common niter- 
est ? Let all sectional jealousies be buried, and with more sin- 
cerity and permanency than Themistocles and Aristides buried 
their animosities, when the interests of their common country 
were endangered," &.c. 

Ought not Southern men to rejoice in hearing such generous 
sentiments from Northern lips? And Vigornius is not alone in 
these sentiments. The guilt of New England in reference to Af- 
rican slavery, seems to be fully appreciated by almost every re- 
cent writer on that subject, and the duty, of New Englandto purify 
herself from this guilt", powerfully urged. Let me exhibit a few 
proofs of this assertion out of many. "Let us not imagine for a 
moment, that we, in this Northern clime, are exempt from that 
enormous guilt, connected with slavery, and the slave-trade, which 
we are so ready to appropriate to our brethren in distant States. 
We have no right thus to wash our hands. From New-England 
have gone the ships and sudors, that have been polluted with this 
inhuman tratfic. In New-England are the forges, which have 
framed the fetters and manacles for the limbs of unoftending Af- 
ricans. The iron of New-England has pierced their anguished 
souls. In New-England are found the overgrown fortunes, the 
proud palaces, which have been reared up from the blood and suf- 
ferings of these unhappy men. The guilt both of the slave-trade 
and slavery is strictly national. National then let the expiation 
be."* — " The wisdom and t/ic united energies of the whole nation 
must he put uneler I'eqidsition, if einy thing is to he cif'ceted. Slave- 
ry to an alarming extent exists among us as a nation ; the guilt is 
a national one — the danger is national — and the etiort for its com- 
plete removal must be national, or it will be in vain."t — ,' There 
is perhaps no subject, which excites so much of what is called src- 
iioned ieeWn^, — so much of jealousy at the South, so nnich of ex- 
ultation at the North, and so much of indignant invective in all 
parts of the Union, as the subject before us in any of its relations. 
But the feeling at the North and at the South is equally unrea- 
sonable, not to say ecpially criminal. The difference in regard to 
slavery and a negro population, between New England and Geor- 
gia, we owe not to ourselves or to our fathers, but to the God, 

" Rev. Dr. Duna's Sermon at Londondcrrv, N. H. 
■k Rev. W. T. Hamilton's Discourse on 4th July, at Newarlc, N. J. 



80 



SLAVEUi. 



[HO. iX„ 



who lias placed our lir»bit;ition v/liere the ciiinate luibadc the in- 
troduction of African-S, and where the hard soil could be cultivate 
ed only by the hands of freemen. Had the rough hills, and the 
cold winds, and the long wijiters of New-England, been exchang- 
ed for the rich plains, and the burning sun, and the enervating 
breezes of Carolinian, ail the sacred principles of Puritanism would 
not have prevented the introduction of slavery at a time when 
hardly a man could be found in either hemisphere to raise his voice 
against the enormity, and when England was determined to in- 
fect all her colonies with debditating and deadly poison. What 
occasion then can we have to exult over our fellow-citizens ? We 
arc happy to believe that notwithstanding all the vapouring of news- 
paper dcclnimer?, the great majority of the Northerti people regard 
the matter with far more enlarged, liberal, national feelings, than 
is commonly imagined by their Southern brethren,"* — Much more 
to the same effect might be quoted, honorable to the character 
and feelingsof our Northern brethren, and which ought to remove 
the prejudices, and conciliate the good Avill of the inhabitants of 
the South. 

The rapid multiplication of Colonization Societies within a 
few months past in the Northern States, affords substantial evi- 
dence of the sincerity of these professions; they prove that our 
brethren in that region are willing to bear their part in the remo- 
val of the burden and guilt of slavery from our land ; while on 
the other hand, the numerous and continually multiplying instan- 
ces of voluntary emancipation of their slaves by slave-holders, is 
an evidence, that when the door is fairly and fidly opened for the 
safe manumission of the children of bondage, there is no lack of 
disposition, at least among Christians and good men at the South, 
to restore to the blacks the rights which Scripture and the God of 
nature gave them. AVhat can hinder Congress from taking into 
immediate consideration this great subject, and what might not be 
expected from the intellectual energy and pecuniary competency 
of the nation, expressing its will and determination, through this 
organ. In tlie mean time, whether the subject is taken up or not 
immediately by the Legislature of the nation, let individuals, and 
associations do all they can to forward this great and glorious 
work. There is no time to be lost. The evils of slavery are 
growing upon us in a most alarming degree ; and the voice of 
warning is heard from our wisest and ablest statesmen, as much 
as from our best Christians, urging us to "do with our might 
whatsoever our hands find to do" in this interesting concern. 
The language, the recent language of the aged Jefferson, the 



* Review of Reports of the American Colonization Society in Christian 
Spectator, Vol. 5, page 541. 



.NO, IX.] SLAVERY. 81 

idol of the South, is exphcit on this subject. "\Till tbo«e Avho ad- 
mire and almost adore him in other respects, not value his sentir 
ments nor heed his admonition on this topic ? And what says Mr. 
Jefierson ? Quite in the early part of his life, speaking of the prob- 
ability that the blacks may assert their freedom, he adds, " The 
Almighty has no attribute, which can take side with us in such a 
contest !" Much more recently we hear him saying, " The love of 
justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of this peo- 
ple, and it is a mortal reproach to us, that they should have plead- 
ed it so long in vain. The hour of emancipation is advancing in 
the march of time ; it will come, whether brought on by the gen- 
erous energy of our own minds, or by the bloody process of St. 
Domingo." — Are these opinions and remonstrances of the politi- 
cal patriarch of the Soutli to go for nothing ? Will not Virginia 
lead the way in the work of emancipation for her slave-holding 
sisters, who I am persuaded, would in this case soon follow 1 Vir- 
ginia, the birthplace and the constant residence of the distinguish- 
ed individual whose sentiments we have just quoted — Virginia, 
where " slavery has reduced the price of land to about one fourth 
of what it is in Pennsylvania, — where, if the entire slave popula- 
tion were removed from the soil, and in the room of it an indus- 
trious white population introduced, so that the land might rise to 
its proper value, they would be richer without their slaves than 
with them" — shall not Virginia be the first and most forward to 
act on this great occasion, as she has already lost, under the blast- 
ing and whithering influence of the slave-holding system, not- 
withstanding the extent and fertility of her territory, her compar- 
ative pre-eminence among the sisterhood of the American States, 
and is continuing to descend daily ? Reasons, physical, political, 
and moral, all unite in demanding the extirpation of slavery from 
the free and happy soil of America as soon and as fast as it can 
be done. Individuals have begun well, and in avariety of instan- 
ces have set a noble and laudable example. Let the Legislatures 
of the respective states and of the nation act with promptitude and 
with vigor, and improve every new opening which the providence 
of God may afford, and I will venture to predict, that in fifty years 
or perhaps less time, there will hardly be a case of involuntary 
slavery in our land. 

Let me ask Christians, and Christian ministers, and Christian 
congregations, especially those of the Presbyterian denomina- 
tion, whether they have observed and acted on the recommenda- 
tions of the General Assembly in the report of the year 1818, as 
published in the Recorder of Oct. 28th at the request of your Vir- 
ginia correspondent. That judicious and excellent document I 
do not know whether I have met with before ; but its republica- 
tion just at this time, is highly seasonable. 

Slavery, if immediate, ai?d strong, and steady measures are 



82 SLAVERY. [no. IX. 

not taken lor its removal, threatens more, far more than any 
• thing else, to be the ruin of our country. Aside from the dan- 
gers to be apprehended from the slaves themselves in their rapid- 
ly increasing population, and from the incurableness of the evil if 
it is sulfered to grow much longer, or extend much farther among 
us, perhaps a still greater evil to be dreaded is disunion among 
ourselves. If Northern men and the Northern States, after all 
that has been said and written respecting their willingness to bear 
their proportionate share of expense, and inconvenience, and sac- 
rifice, in throwing oil' this common burden, and their willingness 
that this should be regarded and treated as a great national con- 
cern, find all their offers treated M-ith contempt, and all their ef- 
forts frustrated by the pertinacious adherence of the slave-holding 
States to a system contrary to Scripture, to conscience, to our 
declaration of Independence, to the natural rights of men, have 
we not too much reason to fear, in due time the awful evil of a 
separation of the States ! And, after all the vapouring and hecto- 
ring of Governor Troup and his associates, rfjiccting men at the 
South must perceive, that the condition of their region, would, 
under such circumstances, be most undesirable. But this is not 
all. An evil which may be considered as even worse than the 
one just mentioned, is before us. We at the South are a divided 
people among ourselves. As I have said before, whatever differ- 
ence there may be between Northern and Southern politicians on 
this subject, between Nortiiern and Southern Christians there is 
none. This has been proved even from those very writers in 
your paper, who came out professedly against Vigornius, but who, 
before they finished, gave evidence that, substantially, they were 
decidedly on his side. Blessed be God, genuine, vital Christian- 
ity is the same all over the world. Christians at the South have 
been long oppressed, on this subject. They believe that the gos- 
pel is as much intended for the slaves on our Southern planta- 
tions, as for any people under the wide canopy of Heaven. Yet 
in their endeavours to give the blacks that precious gosiiel, and 
particularly in teaching the blacks to rcail, that they too may 
"■^ search those Scriptures which testify of Christ," they have been 
met, and thwarted, and counteracted by Legislative powers and 
penalties, by popular resentment, in some few instances (and we 
hope they are but few) by the acts of a lawless mob. These things 
ought not so to be, and these things cannot long so continue. 
Ministers hakI Christians must either leave the country, or re- 
maining in It, if they mean to be faithful, must expect to encoun- 
ter a species of Martyrdom. Christian inlluence is increasing at 
the South — religion is advancing— the followers of Christ are be- 
viiMiing more numerous and more engaged — tliey feel that they 
liiivc ii great and a very long-neglected work to do for their de- 
graded slaves. But if tiiey are to be hampered, aiid fettered, and 



NO. IX. j ^LAVERTi:. 83 

brow beaten, and in various ways opposed in iheif plans and ef- 
forts to Christianize the slaves, under the pretext that they are 
endangering the safety of the community, I know not what the 
consequences will be, and I shudder to look into them. May God 
preserve the liberty, the Union, the peace, and the religion of these 
United States, and teach the inhabitants to ^'' do jtistli/, to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly before God." May he dispose them 
to " break every yoke and to let the oppressed go free," that we 
may trust in his sure defence, and be covered with his protection 
as with a shield. 

Having taken a wider range in this discussion than I intended, 
and perhaps than I ought to have been indulged in, I retire, that 
better heads and hearts, and abler pens, may take it up. I trust 
it will be continued as long as slavery in its present form exists. 

HiERONYMUS. 



■ivjf'j- <f • '^ 



I 



v.bJ^-'^'^ 



